Money
A career brewed by a cuppa
By Shen Jingting (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-13 07:54
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Kenneth Hermansson wants his coffee chain to be a meeting place for people aged 20 to 45. Zou Hong / China Daily |
The love of a good cup of java has brewed many a career change.
One Swedish national who had been engaged in supplying cups and other porcelain goods to coffee houses in the capital is among those taken in by coffee.
Kenneth Hermansson said his natural Swedish love for the brown drink stirred him to action.
"Sweden is the second-biggest coffee consumer in the world per capita, only behind Finland. We almost drink 1,200 cups of coffee per person every year," Hermansson, 45, said in his newly opened coffee store in the Oriental Plaza in Beijing.
Although more coffee is consumed in volume by coffee drinkers in Brazil and the US, Scandinavians know their coffee beans.
In China, people usually drink an average of only four cups per year. For big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, the figure might only surpass 30 cups, Hermansson said.
"A lot of Chinese people love coffee now," he said. "Even if a small portion of people are doing this, it is still a huge market, because you have so many people here," Hermansson said, smiling and leaning against the coffee bar.
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Unlike the colors commonly associated with coffee shops, such as the dark green and brown of Starbucks, Wayne's coffee introduces a much lighter palette in its Oriental Plaza location.
"We want to provide a meeting place for people with an age of 20 to 45," he said. "They are usually young, fashionable and are interested in the Western style of life."
The average cost per person is 40 to 50 yuan. That hasn't deterred locals from sipping it up.
"So far, 80 percent of our customers are Chinese, and of course, lots of foreigners have dropped by," he said.
Hermansson plans to open five more Wayne's Coffee shops in Beijing by the end of this year; a second cafe is about to open in Beijing near the Silk Market, a popular stomping ground of foreign tourists.
Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee company, now operates 70 chain stores in Beijing. Facing such strong competition, Hermansson is hardly daunted.
"Starbucks provides fast-food coffee, while we put more effort in brewing coffee, so it tastes much better. You can call it high-quality coffee," he said.
Hermansson took the CEO mantle in January. Before accepting that role, he was the porcelain goods supplier to Wayne's Coffee.
"I had been porcelain provider for Wayne's for about six or seven years, and have a very good relationship with its management. They've known me very well," Hermansson said.
He said his two years of work experience in Beijing and prior role in Sweden and China for almost 10 years make him an asset to the company.
"I had traded shoes, bags, porcelain and many kinds of household items between Europe and China since 2000," Hermansson said proudly.
He used a porcelain cup as an example of his prowess. He usually bought a cup for 3 or 4 yuan in China, and sold it for the equivalent of 10 yuan in Europe.
"The business helped me earn about half a million yuan per year," he said.
But Hermansson said that job was not the most profitable he has held. When he was 24, he quit as an engineer at a Swedish power company and established a home video chain in Stockholm.
"I invested maybe 400,000 yuan in the business, and rented videos to people. It was really profitable in the 1990s and I operated 12 stores in the same city in six years."
However, everything has a life cycle, he said. When the people turned to DVDs, then with personal computers looming on the horizon for home entertainment, Hermansson quickly sold the stores in 1999.
"I think deep in my heart, I am really competitive, which urges me to become stronger and more powerful, so I tried various opportunities and like to take challenges," he said.
As a young man Hermansson enjoyed orienteering. He recalled he nearly met the standard for making the Swedish national team.
The endeavor requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and unfamiliar terrain.
