Coffee in China: 9.9 Yuan Lattes, Menu Codes and Where to Sit
Published 2026-11-11 · 71Asia Tours
Coffee used to be the thing you put up with in China while waiting for proper tea. That flipped around 2023, when Luckin quietly passed Starbucks in store count and started selling lattes for less than a bottle of water. Today the coffee shop is one of the easiest things to find in any Chinese city, and often the cheapest seat in the neighborhood. Here is how I order.
The chains, and what they charge
Two homegrown chains run the volume game. Luckin (瑞幸) has more than twenty thousand stores and parks itself on office-tower ground floors and hospital streets. Its menu prices are modest already, but the app constantly hands out 9.9 yuan coupons, which brings a large americano down to roughly a euro. Cotti (库迪), founded by Luckin's former executives, plays the same game from 8.8 yuan and has a habit of opening directly across the street from a Luckin.
Starbucks sits at the other end: 30 to 40 yuan for a latte, now the luxury option. What you buy is predictability. Every store has decent toilets, seats that are meant for sitting, and staff who will take a counter order in slow, patient English if your app misbehaves.
Between the two ends sits a real specialty scene: M Stand and Seesaw in the big cities, plus thousands of independents charging 25 to 50 yuan for pour-overs and espresso tonics. Many roast Yunnan beans now, which are genuinely good.
Ordering without fighting the app
The chains are built around their mini-programs. In Alipay, search "Luckin Coffee" and the store menu opens; you order, pay, and get a pickup code, and it takes two minutes once you have done it once. The catch is that it wants a Chinese phone number for the verification code. If yours refuses to play along, walk to the counter: most Luckin and Cotti stores will ring you up manually, though at morning rush they may wave you toward the app. Starbucks takes counter orders without fuss.
- Scanning the menu QR code on the table works at many independents.
- Meituan delivers coffee the same way it delivers noodles.
- Coupons live in the app's coupon tab. Tap it before you pay, every time.
The menu, decoded
Cup sizes are the classic trap. 中杯 (zhōngbēi) literally means "medium cup" but it is the small size, about 12 ounces. 大杯 is the 16-ounce one most people actually want, and 超大杯 is the 20. Order a "medium" expecting medium and you will get something closer to a cortado with milk.
The default order for half the country is the coconut latte (生椰拿铁), the drink that made Luckin's fortune. It is genuinely good and safely sweet. Americano is 美式, latte is 拿铁, and if you want no ice say 去冰, less ice 少冰. Chains also run seasonal novelty lattes; Luckin once sold a baijiu latte with Moutai that tasted exactly as you would expect.
Cafés worth sitting in
The chains are for fuel; the independents are for staying. They skew laptop-friendly, open around 9 or 10 in the morning, and close earlier than you expect, often by 19:00 in residential blocks. Wifi is standard. Plugs are not, so if you plan to work, ask 有插座吗 (yǒu chāzuò ma) before you commit to the corner seat.
Shanghai reportedly has more cafés than any other city on earth, which sounds like a press release until you walk Anfu or Yongkang road and count. Beijing hides its best ones in hutong courtyards. Chengdu mixes cafés and teahouses on the same block and nobody sees a contradiction.
City by city
- Beijing: hutong courtyards around Wudaoying and Guozijian; chains thick near Sanlitun. The courtyard cafés are the memory you keep.
- Xi'an: shops cluster around the Bell Tower and inside the city wall. A quiet espresso after the terracotta crowds is its own reward.
- Chengdu: the most relaxed café culture on the mainland. Yulin and Wangpingjie mix indie roasters with teahouses.
- Chongqing: cafés trade on views, hillside terraces above the river near Liziba and Eling. Earn the latte on the stairs first.
- Shanghai: the deepest bench in the country, from international chains on the Bund to third-wave shops in the former French Concession.
- Tibet: rooftop cafés around Lhasa's Barkhor look over the Jokhang circuit. Coffee costs more here since everything is trucked in; butter tea is still the local caffeine, and a second espresso at 3,650 meters hits harder than it should.
- Zhangjiajie: essentially nothing on the mountain itself; Wulingyuan town has a couple of simple shops. Bring coffee sachets or accept tea for a few days.
- Hong Kong: start with a cha chaan teng's silk-stocking milk tea, about HK$25, then move to Sheung Wan for serious roasters. Sham Shui Po has the cheap-and-good end.
- Macao: gentler and Portuguese-flavored. Cafés in Taipa village pair espresso with egg tarts, and nobody is in a hurry.
- Taipei: the best café culture in the Chinese-speaking world. NT$120 to 180 buys an indie pour-over, and convenience-store coffee at NT$45 quietly embarrasses plenty of proper cafés.
What I actually do
On travel days I open Luckin's mini-program before I reach the station, order a large iced americano at whatever the coupon price is, and pick it up on the way to the platform. In cities, I spend mornings at chains and afternoons at independents, because the independents are where the neighborhood shows itself. Budget 9.9 to 15 yuan at the chains, about 30 yuan at mid-range independents, and Starbucks when I need a toilet and a reliable seat more than good coffee. That is roughly one to five euros, still cheaper than what I pay at home in most of Europe.
One last thing. If what you actually want is milk tea, that is a different shop. HeyTea, Chagee and Mixue have their own queues and their own sugar-level codes; the short version is that 三分糖 means what it says, and half sugar is still very sweet. Coffee and milk tea live on different streets in China.
Written by the team at 71Asia Tours, a China-based tour operator with licensed Spanish- and English-speaking guides. Browse all tours · About us · Our guides · Reviews · FAQ