A woman drinks coffee at a café in Anji, East China's Zhejiang Province.Photo: Chen Xia/Global Times
Coffee, jokingly called "staying-up-late drink" by many white-collar employees in China, seems to always be connected with busy office life, overtime work and meeting deadlines.
While in Anji, a small county in East China's Zhejiang Province, coffee conjures the images of a natural, poetic and idyllic lifestyle.
Only a 30-minute high-speed train ride from Hangzhou, host city of the upcoming Asian Games, Anji is a new travel destination that has gained popularity in the last couple years thanks to its cafés that are built in the forests, beside rice fields and in valleys.
Its creative combination of cafés and natural beauty has attracted numerous visitors who want to escape from crowded metropolis and get closer to nature on the weekend.
A sip of peace
For newcomers to Anji, encountering unknown cafés "hidden" in nature can be a very interesting experience. Many of the cafés are decorated with simple natural elements like flowers and leaves, making them look like an original part of woods, mountains or paddy fields.
A tourist surnamed Hu travelled to Anji with her family from Northwest China's Gansu Province. In Anji, they were captured by a vast expanse of verdant, silk-like rice fields when driving past, and then found a café beside the fields.
"I couldn't take my eyes off the rice fields; It was so beautiful and lush, quite different from my hometown," Hu told the Global Times at the Beetle Art Museum Café.
"I was also happy to see a café nearby. It enabled us to sit back and enjoy the green paddy fields while drinking coffee."
Facing paddy fields, the café has a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows that allow customers to easily watch the beautiful countryside view outside. The view changes with the seasons and local crop planting schedules, said the café owner Jiang Jingjing.
"Rape flowers in spring, lotuses and green paddy fields in summertime, golden paddies in autumn and snow in winter," Jiang explained. "People can enjoy the ever changing view here throughout the year."
Jiang said that her customers are mainly from nearby big cities including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing. For them, this village café is a good place to simply relax and let go, "one can just sit in front of the rice and lotus fields for a whole afternoon without doing anything."
For young people that pursue something cool and fashionable, they may encounter a more "hardcore" café built at an abandoned quarry pit in rural Anji.
The Boom Café is designed as a dark mining space with its roof, walls, tables and desks painted all black. A huge moon is hanging over the café's counter, and the ceiling is designed as a starry sky, bringing customers into a sort of sci-fi film atmosphere.
An interesting feature of the café's decorations is a black gorilla holding a banner, saying "Do nothing you'll live longer." Those who just escape from their busy workplace seem to appreciate the motto once relaxing in the café. Steps away, outdoor activities are sometimes held at the center of the pit, such as camping, a weekend market, and beer or music festivals, said the café's staffer Wang Juxiang.
"For fun-loving young people, having a cup of coffee here is like an appetizer before the feast."
Beautiful transformationIn an article of October 2022, the travel guide magazine Lonely Planet recommended several close-to-nature cafés in Anji, saying the county may have become a new top café destination in China apart from Shanghai.
With over 300 cafés, the mountainous Anji has become one of the Chinese counties with the highest number of cafés, the local government told the Global Times.
It is worth mentioning that many of the cafés were transformed from abandoned factories, or constructed on waste grounds.
Driving on the winding path in the mountain, people may miss an Arcadia-like café in midst of the trees if they don't look carefully. The café is a white house being built on a clearing, surrounded by flowers, grass and leaves. In the tender sunlight and the faint aroma of coffee, those who encounter the little house may feel as if entering the world of an impressionist painting.
The café was decorated in a minimalist style: simple white walls, two or three drawings, burly wood tables and chairs, and flower arrangements. It has very big windows, allowing green to flood into the room.
It's hard to imagine that the café used to be a shabby, dirty factory. Hu Jian, a co-owner of the café, recalled that when she and her partner found this place at the end of 2021, the factory was producing swivel chair accessories.
"The natural beauty around was amazing, but the factory was surrounded by dust, wood scraps, garbage and noise," Hu told the Global Times. "I felt it was a pity for such a beautiful place. It was like a treasure buried in dust."
Hu and her partner spent months and tens of thousands of yuan in purchasing the factory and transforming it into a café. They named the café "Cozy." "Just like the name, we want our customers feel comfortable and relaxed - being as cozy as at home," Hu explained.
At the café, American customer Herman drank Cappuccino while talking to his friend. Herman said he cooperates with some factories in Anji. One day he searched online for a nearby coffee shop and then he found Cozy.
He praised the café's idyllic environment. "It feels like I fell into a dream surrounded by beautiful mountains," he told the Global Times.
More than cafésMining used to be Anji's pillar industry, until, in the last two decades, local government determined to close the quarry pits and pursue green development. With continuous efforts in improving environment, now the county has become a famous ecotourism destination in China.
Apart from various idyllic cafés, those who plan to travel to Anji can also visit its verdant bamboo forests and grasslands and experience rafting in the rivers of the valleys.
Anji is the renowned homeland of bamboo and white tea. For tourists in Anji, drinking white tea and tasting the unique bamboo-shoot snacks can be an essential part of their trip.
