Taste of times past

Evolution of Shanghai Brand coffee products through the ages. photos provided to shanghai star

Shanghai is home to China's coffee culture, and the company that once dominated the market is now making a comeback, bringing new flavors with just a hint of nostalgia.

Coffee or tea? This is not a question common for most Chinese, a nation with thousands of years of tea drinking history. But in Shanghai, where coffee culture was first established in the country, the beverage has many fans.

Desheng Café (德胜咖啡馆), located at the crossing of West Nanjing Road and Tongren Road, is well-known to many older Shanghai people, as it was once the best place to go to drink coffee with friends or take a date.

Founded in April 1935, Desheng Coffee Trading Company quickly won popularity across the city and became the leading Shanghai-style café.

It's registered brand "C. P. C" was changed to "Shanghai" in 1958, when it started production of its first iron-tinned coffee.

In 1959, the company further changed its named to Shanghai Coffee Factory, becoming the nation's earliest coffee producer.

A wider variety of products, such as coffee-tea, Lecovo (lekoufu) (cocoa-flavored instant beverage), malted milk (mairujing) (vanilla-flavored instant beverage), and chrysanthemum solid drink (chrysanthemum-flavored instant beverage) was launched in the following years.

The company enjoyed its heyday between the 1960s and 1980s. Along the city's iconic Nanjing Road, all the cafés sold coffee produced by the Shanghai Coffee Factory.

"As a matter of fact, not only in Shanghai, all the coffee available in cafes and hotels across China were provided by us, and that's why they have a common name — Shanghai qingka (black coffee) and Shanghai naika (coffee with milk)," says Yang Dongwei, marketing manager of Shanghai Coffee Factory.

According to Yang, a tin of Shanghai-branded coffee priced at 3.5 yuan ($0.57) indicated the drinker's thirst for life.

Shanghai-branded coffee was not instant coffee. In order to have a cup of coffee at home, the coffee drinker had to wrap the coffee into gauze, boil it in a pot, and filter the remains. "The best mate of a coffee is soda cracker," says Yang.

Shanghai Coffee Factory's dominance was challenged in the late 1980s when foreign instant coffee was first introduced into China, as well as the later spread of cafés including Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Sandwiched between instant coffee products and foreign cafés, Shanghai-branded coffee was forgotten by most drinkers, and adamant fans could only find it in some supermarkets and special stores.

After years of oblivion, the brand was revitalized in the second half of 2013, with a new set of coffee products including Italian coffee, blue mountain coffee, and Columbian coffee in new packages.

The 80-year-old Shanghai Coffee is now trying to attract younger customers as well as recapturing its older fans. "The packaging has changed and there are new varieties of flavor, but this is just our first step, we are looking to borrow the successful business model of international coffee brands," added Yang.