Western-style cafes are booming on college campuses as the number of foreigners studying at China's universities rises, and returnees cling to the habits they developed overseas, as Luo Wangshu reports.

Isabella Greene, a US student in Beijing, regards Harney & Sons, a coffeehouse near Beijing Language and Culture University, as the definitive cure for homesickness.

"It's very similar to campus coffee shops back home ... the music, the decorations, and especially the coffee. I can spend the whole day here, doing my homework or seeing friends," the Kentuckian said as she nursed a large cup of cappuccino.

As the number of foreign students rises, especially in mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, US-style coffee shops are springing up at colleges and universities to cater to their needs.

Demand looks set to continue rising. In 2013, more than 356,000 foreign students studied in China, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Education, a year-on-year increase of 8.58 percent, while last year saw 56,000 international students attend universities in Shanghai, making the city China's second-most-popular study destination for foreign students, according to the local education commission. Now, the municipal government aims to raise the number of international students at the city's colleges to 15 percent of the total student body by 2020.

Meanwhile, the ever-growing number of young Chinese heading overseas for study has seen returnees bring back a range of Western influences, from music to literature, movies to meals, including an addiction to coffee.

According to research conducted by Mintel, a market researcher in the UK, the number of coffeehouses in China doubled from 15,988 in 2007 to 31,783 in 2012.

It's no coincidence that most are situated close to educational establishments, because ever since the world's first "coffeehouse" opened in Oxford, England, in the early 1650s, they've been associated with universities, the avant-garde and intellectuals.

A forum for ideas

Cactus was the first coffee house at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing - where 3,000 international students account for 20 percent of the total student body - when it opened in March 2005. In 2013, UIBE had the second-largest international student body in Beijing, according to Shi Jianjun, the university's president.

The founder of Cactus, Wang Quangang, said he started the shop as a place for students to meet, talk and swap ideas. "When I was at college in Shenyang (Liaoning province) back in the 1980s, there was nowhere to meet with friends, except for the student canteen. College students are a group of 'active brains', with the most passionate and wild ideas. Places like coffeehouses are essential for the spread of ideas and theories. They are irreplaceable."

Although the cafe, on the first floor of the international dorm building, originally only attracted foreign students, it's becoming increasingly popular with the Chinese.

"They (international students) have the coffee habit, and we catered solely to their needs at first, but eventually some of the Chinese students started dropping by. Now, professors occasionally host discussion groups here, and students from all over the world hang out," Wang said. "I hope that many years after graduation, the students will say that Cactus provides a faithful snapshot of their college lives, something to look back on fondly."

Waitress Zhang Fang said she's noticed many changes in the five years she has worked at Cactus: "The students call it the 'informal study room' because it's pretty much unregulated and very comfortable. I remember two girls who met in the coffee shop because they both liked to sit near the window. One day, they started talking and went from being complete strangers to best friends very quickly, all because of the coffee shop."

Across town, Katerina Galajdova, who studies at Beijing Language and Culture University, described Harney & Sons as "a place to record wonderful moments". The Czech national said: "It will definitely be one of the top five places I'll miss when I leave Beijing."

That sentiment was echoed by Isabella Greene, the US student, who recalled walking into the shop after a tough day during which she had fallen out with a close friend and also started to feel depressed by the university's intense study program. She said the cafe's ambience and soft music helped calm her down.

"Later, I met a friend, who told me that he'd finally bought a train ticket for a trip during Spring Festival. Tickets are extremely hard to obtain during the holiday rush, so I was quite happy about that piece of good news. Somehow it swept my bad mood away," she said.

Chinese who have studied overseas are also drawn to the coffee shops. Lin Ke, who returned to Beijing from the United Kingdom in February, will shortly take up a post as a lecturer in the education faculty at Beijing Normal University. Having spent seven years as a student at BNU before heading to the UK in 2010, Lin said the biggest change she's noticed at her alma mater is the emergence of the coffee shops.

"I remember there was only one place on campus that served coffee and tea during my undergraduate years. It attracted very few customers, maybe because it was pretty expensive, about 20 yuan ($3.20) for a regular coffee," said Lin, who developed the coffee habit during her time in the UK.

Developing trend

As the coffee shops grow in popularity, their function is beginning to change from the purely social to business oriented, and they are becoming important networking tools for entrepreneurs, who utilize the gatherings of students and recent alumni to meet and assess young talent. Now, one club is hoping to cash in on that trend.

Located at the east gate of Peking University, the 1898 coffee shop is a members-only cafe for PKU alumni that features a number of rooms for small seminars and discussions that allow budding business tycoons the opportunity to outline their products and plans to like-minded individuals. Founder Yang Yong, a PKU graduate, is hoping the place will eventually attract the cream of the PKU entrepreneurial crop and become an established venue for successive generations of young movers and shakers.

"I hope the coffee shop will become a leading platform for PKU entrepreneurs, and the home of the leading companies and businesspeople of the future," he said.

Contact the writer at luowangshu@chinadaily.com.cn

Yuan Yue contributed to this story

The 1898 Coffee House near Peking University is a famous meeting place. Provided to China Daily

A waitress prepares coffee at Sculpting in Time, a popular cafe chain around Beijing's campuses. Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily

(China Daily 02/13/2015 page5)