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China's budding coffee culture propels Starbucks

Tuesday, December 05, 2017 - 01:42

Starbucks has showcased its first overseas roastery and its world's largest store in Shanghai, as it expressed strong confidence in the growing Chinese market. As Silvia Antonioli reports, the opulent flagship store with gourmet coffees and a bakery and will be open to the public on Wednesday - one of the 10,000 outlets that Starbucks is planning to operate in China within a decade.

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China is waking up to the smell of coffee more and more And Starbucks wants to makes sure it's its beans the nation is sniffing. The US firm is opening its largest store and its first overseas roastery, in Shanghai. The 2,700-square-metre space was inspired by the company's first shop in its hometown of Seattle. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF STARBUCKS COFFEE, HOWARD SCHULTZ, SAYING: "We strongly believe and we're committed to building a long-term business in China that will be bigger, more powerful and more significant than our business in the U.S.." The opulent coffee "roastery" boasts a variety of gourmet coffees and a bakery. Its aim is to capture China's budding love for specialist coffee shops. (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) 29-YEAR-OLD, ZHU RENJIE, SAYING: " This place looks more high-end, much closer to the original coffee roasting and brewing methods, and should be better." Starbucks holds almost 55 percent of the specialist coffee shop market in China, according to Euromonitor, far ahead of rivals like McCafe and Costa Coffee. In total the business is worth almost 4 billion dollars a year. While in the US it's battling boutique coffee sellers and cheaper rivals, its challenge in China has been to win over tea drinkers to coffee, rather than fending off local rivals. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF STARBUCKS COMPANY, KEVIN JOHNSON, SAYING: "There is no other market in the world that has the holding capacity of new store growth, for Starbucks it's China." Starbucks is targeting 10,000 cafes in China within a decade That's more shops that it currently has in the US.