Recently, the reporter heard some old Shanghai citizens reflect that the taste of old Shanghai coffee has returned! Nong can also eat a variety of Shanghai coffee with "Hua tou Jing" in a café called "SHANGHAI Cafe", including malt milk, Lekoufu, salt soda, Bright Ice Brick and so on. Ge Mo, what kind of thing can be a building? The Morning News reporter went to the field to taste the unique taste of old Shanghai coffee.
This café with old Shanghai characteristics is located on Zhaojiabang Road, the store sign is marked with a series of words and patterns related to Shanghai coffee, including: Shangka Coffee, SHANGHAI Cafe, SINCE 1935 and other words, rich in Shanghai style visual design plus Shanghai's English blessing, so that many Shanghai citizens can have a strong Shanghai complex as soon as they see it.
Because during the epidemic period, the gate along the side of the road of the café was temporarily closed, and the reporter entered the Guangming International Building. Just enter the lobby, a strong aroma of coffee has come to the face, customers are either chatting and communicating, or conducting business negotiations.
From the perspective of the coffee category in the store, the product line is very rich, with coffee as the core, divided into several categories such as coffee flavor, Shanghai taste, ice drop coffee, Italian coffee, hand-brewed coffee, etc. At the same time, there are also some drinks and pastries in the store, and the price is also relatively moderate.
For the average customer and coffee lover, choose from a range of Shanghai-style coffee drinks, as well as espresso and low caffeine. Because the category is so colorful, some coffee lovers may not be addicted to a single cup, even elderly friends, here can also find coffee drinks that meet their own taste.
If divided according to taste, in addition to the more common coffee drinks such as American, kabu and latte, there are more novel coffee products such as ice drops, ice brewing, mai xiang, lekoufu and so on, and the coffee drinks are cross-border combinations with Shanghai's time-honored products. The reporter sorted out several special coffee drinks related to Shanghai's time-honored brands:
Grapefruit sea salt bubbles: Add Zhengguang and salt soda
Aphrodite: Add the Light Ice Bricks
Mai Xiang Ao Bai : Add malt milk essence
Shanghai Latte: Join Lekoufu
The reporter himself ordered three kinds of coffee in the store, two of which are new products in autumn and winter, the coffee Diet is based on oat milk and coffee as the main raw materials, Shanghai Dirty added dangui and Sydney to the oat milk, and there is a white-collar people like the Australian white coffee, and the taste of the flowers and coffee is very outstanding.
According to reports, the coffee green beans in the store are imported from the place of origin and roasted on the spot, minimizing and shortening the entire process of coffee from green bean picking to cooked bean roasting to beverage production, and maximizing the restoration of the most authentic and authentic taste of coffee beans.
It can be said that Shanghai brand coffee is an important symbol of Shanghai coffee culture and brand-name products, together with malt milk essence and Lekoufu, it carries the good memories of generations of Shanghainese and is a well-deserved "national memory".
From the perspective of coffee physical stores, in the memory of many old Shanghainese, a number of cafes such as Shanghai Cafe, Kaisling Western Restaurant, and Donghai Cafe have Shanghai memory symbols, but now such Haipai cafes are extremely rare in the city center. The Shanghai Café on Nanjing West Road has quietly left its original location, and the only one who still provides coffee is the Kaisling Western Restaurant, while the Donghai Cafe on Nanjing East Road reopened on Dianchi Road near the Bund after more than ten years of closing, and now it is mainly characterized by Western food, and there are also many nostalgic aunts and uncles to eat coffee.
The reporter inquired about the information and found that in order to restore the past glory of Shanghai coffee and re-create a national brand with local cultural feelings, Guangming International Group, as the main body of trademark registration of "Shangka" and "Shanghai", has cooperated with professional institutions in recent years to prepare for the operation of the "Shangka" chain of specialty coffees, and began to produce a series of coffee products featuring the "Shanghai" brand. In May 2021, the first "Shangka" café was officially unveiled in Guangming International Group's own office building, followed by the opening of the first branch in 1925 Bookstore.
On the official platform of the "Shangka" café, the reporter found such a passage, which may indicate the voice of this young brand with historical background:
We are dedicated to creating a young brand with historical precipitation, restoring the deepest taste of old Shanghai coffee, from the proportion of coffee, the selection of coffee beans, and even the way of caffeine extraction, we restore the classic urban situation one by one, and excavate the deepest memory of time in Shanghai. Shanghai Coffee, which carries the strong memories of a generation of Shanghainese, has appeared in the streets and alleys of Shanghai with a new image, telling the brand story of old Shanghai in a young and fashionable way.
In the café, the reporter also saw a variety of packaged coffee products for sale, the price ranged from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan, and its packaging full of Shanghai elements has also become the choice of many Shanghai citizens to give gifts.
Sun Ying, a Haipai literature researcher and deputy research librarian of Minhang District Library, has been engaged in the research of the history of Coffee in Shanghai in recent years, and in 2020, she has successively launched the "Coffee Catalogue" and "Modern Shanghai Coffee Map", Sun Ying told reporters that she herself drank at least one cup of coffee every day, and the first thing to get up in the morning was to brew coffee, and she said that she was very happy to re-ask the market for the series of coffee products of the "Shanghai" brand:
As early as the 1930s, Shanghai already had its own coffee brands, such as Samsung brand, goose brand, Phoenix brand, Lihe brand, etc., and in the form of instant coffee tea in Shanghai and even the country sold well. In this sense, nearly a hundred years ago, Shanghai has been committed to building its own urban character and coffee culture.
Today's Shanghai, compared with that era, should have more superior conditions and more colorful urban culture, and it is more suitable for its own coffee brand. I believe that Shanghai has this strength, can go out, and may become the mainstream of world coffee culture!
He Zhenhua, a veteran media person, Shanghai writer, essayist and critic, drinks one or two cups of coffee every day, and he also sends his blessings to this café in Shanghai:
"Shangjia" and "Shanghai" will always be a cup of afternoon tea in Greater Shanghai.
According to the information of the "Shangka" café, the Shanghai coffee factory that produced the "Shanghai brand" coffee was formerly known as The Desheng Coffee Import Line, and the Shanghai brand coffee was renamed from CPC coffee. Desheng Coffee Import Shop was founded in 1935, so this time in 1935 is also widely used in the design and promotion of café signs and stores. So, what is the matter between Desheng Coffee Import Line and CPC Coffee?
In this issue of the Morning News Weekly "Shanghai Parlor" program, the guest we invited is Ms. Sun Ying, a researcher of Haipai literature, who today specifically inquired about a large number of historical materials about Shanghai coffee and gave us a detailed introduction.
As far as the modern literature seen so far is concerned, advertisements related to Desheng Coffee Import Bank were first published in the "News Daily" on July 1, 1943, and the literature related to CPC Coffee was first found in the "Trademark Notice" of No. 169, 1940.
In the history of modern Shanghai coffee, CPC coffee is a coffee brand that flourished during the fall of Shanghai. The owner, Zhang Baocun, a native of Dinghai, Ningbo, graduated from St. Francis Ji English School in Shanghai, ran a department store at Sparky & Co. in Hong Kong, and later returned to Shanghai to start a Honolulu catering company. In 1932, Zhang Baocun worked for Haining Foreign Firm, and then founded Desheng Coffee Import Bank. In July 1944, Zhang Baocun was appointed chairman of the Shanghai Special City Cafe Industry Association.
The address of Desheng Coffee Import Line was at No. 1742 Jing'an Temple Road (today's Nanjing West Road). Before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, most of the well-known cafes in Shanghai used imported coffee beans, such as Tilmon, CPC, SW, MAXWIL (today's Maxwell Coffee), Taihe and other brands, which sold for seven or eight corners and one pound. After the outbreak of the war, these imported products were extinct on the market, and even if they paid a price of one hundred and twenty or thirty yuan a pound, it was difficult to buy. Zhang Baocun was a shrewd businessman who hoarded a large number of coffee beans in the warehouse before the imported coffee stall was broken. When coffee beans became a hot commodity, Zhang Baocun packaged the coffee in stock in bags and sold it to various cafes under the CPC brand, which was a fortune.
Interestingly, CPC is also an abbreviation for Zhang Baocun's English name. At that time, Zhang Baocun also opened a CPC café on Jing'an Temple Road, retail coffee beans and coffee powder, the store also has a coffee seat, and sells freshly ground coffee, the price of a cup of coffee is half cheaper than other cafes, and its freshly ground coffee is extremely fragrant and mellow, so at that time, a group of literati artists liked to go to jing'an Temple Road this CPC café to drink coffee, such as film director Fang Peilin, who must go here every day to drink coffee, rain or shine. Literati Pan Qinmeng and Tang Dalang, as well as writer Xu Weinan, are regular customers of CPC Cafe on Jing'an Temple Road. When Xu Weinan was in the rear of Chongqing, he also mentioned CPC coffee, and he wrote in "Three Questions of Food":
Under the strict order of drinking coffee, it was really lucky to be able to drink this cup of coffee, and later I ate his secret SW coffee at the hometown ding toexiang brother, and later, in the home of a civil servant, I ate SW coffee again. I am not as good as eating coffee, but things are scarce and expensive, in Shanghai wartime only drink CPC coffee, no SW brand, after arriving in Chongqing, but get it, naturally the most happy.
In the CPC café on Jing'an Temple Road, a cup of coffee was initially two dimes and five cents, and later the price soared, costing three hundred and fifty yuan a cup.
In 1944, Zhang Bao opened a CPC coffee branch at No. 534 Taishan Road (today's Huaihai Road), and the business was excellent. Because of its proximity to the Grand Theatre of Paris, the CPC Café on Tarzan Road has become a place where stars gather. Every afternoon, you can see many film celebrities, such as Xu Xinfu, Li Pingqian, Wang Yin, Yan Jun, Tu Guangqi, Gu Yilu and others. These directors must arrive every day, so many actors often appear here, such as Ouyang Shafei, Yang Liu, Cang Yinqiu, and Wang Danfeng.
During the fall of Shanghai, coffee was extremely scarce, but CPC coffee was supplied in large quantities under the name of domestic coffee, so it became the best-selling coffee on the market at that time. At that time, the menus of major hotels, Western restaurants, cafes and other restaurants in Shanghai all indicated that CPC coffee was provided, which showed its wide sales. Interestingly, in addition to distributing coffee, Desheng Coffee also sells lard.
In 1945, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the shipping was smooth, and CPC Coffee gradually lost its monopoly position in Shanghai cafes, and the business plummeted. Zhang Bao, who is eager to make money, borrowed money to set a large number of American coffees, but the fixed payment was paid, but the coffee was delayed, and the price of the goods was declining day by day, and the interest was getting worse and worse. In 1946, Zhang Baocun sold the CPC Café on Taishan Road to a new shareholder for 150 gold bars, and Zhang Baocun escaped, and the new shareholder continued to operate under the name of CPC Coffee Company.
After 1949, Desheng Coffee Import Bank continued to operate on Nanjing West Road, and after experiencing a series of changes such as public-private partnership, "Desheng Coffee" became a historical term in the history of coffee in modern Shanghai.
In addition, the Morning News reporter today in the "Liberation Daily" published on June 27, 1956 inquired about a news that "domestic coffee will be listed" that year:
The first batch of domestic coffee shipped from Yunnan to the city is currently being processed and copied at the Nanjing West Lu Desheng Coffee Shop. It is said that the quality of this batch of domestic coffee is very good, as long as three or four spices of coffee, you can brew a large cup of red steaming fragrant coffee tea, compared with the world-famous Brazilian "three ways and four" coffee, comparable, but the price is cheaper than imported coffee.
Will Nong go to the "Shangka" café and taste the taste of old Shanghai?