[OOO] China’s lie-flat coffee capital is brewing a new Chinese dream 💭 | Following the Yuan
How a county in Yunnan embraces the country's new middle-class lifestyle
A regular voice in Following the Yuan, Junjie spent the month of May living as a digital nomad in Yunnan — but rather than flocking to familiar hotspots, he took a local’s tip and landed in Menglian County.
Yunnan - Pu’er - Menglian
Going through Pu’er in a car, a prefecture-level city known for the tea named after the region, you are immersed in the terroir: endless rows of tea shrubs sculpted into the hillsides like waves frozen mid-crest.
Tea, however, is no longer the only star. Pu’er is now staking a bold claim as China’s coffee capital.
My friend and I were on our way to Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County (孟连傣族拉祜族佤族自治县) upon a local’s recommendation. Upon arrival, our first modern frustration arrived swiftly: no ride-hailing apps.
Our hotel manager held the sacred phonebook — a list of local drivers corralled into a WeChat group. If you needed a ride, she would post in the chat, and one of them would call you directly.
This isn’t to say Menglian is cut off from modernity. Quite the opposite: it’s simply too small on China’s scale, and local demand doesn’t sustain a fleet of ride-share drivers.
As someone from the central province of Hunan, where a county town could easily exceed a million people, Menglian feels like a small town. It has three main streets wrapped around a valley, and a population shy of 140,000.
Taxis are for outsiders, a cab driver told us. Even the few Didi drivers we found quickly vanished after two rides, like apparitions receding into the haze.
China’s lie-flat coffee capital
Drinking coffee, long a foreign lifestyle, has been warmly embraced by China’s youth. In 2024 alone, China imported $970 million worth of coffee beans, according to data from China’s customs. And Shanghai now boasts more cafés than any other city in the world, a domestic report said.
In recent years, Yunnan has seduced a generation of young Chinese urbanites as an aspirational destination to ‘lie flat.’ Clean air, post-card scenery, a slow pace of life, diverse culture and ethnic cuisines, and a subtle distance from the anxieties of Beijing or Shanghai.
Within Yunnan, tourism hubs like Dali and Lijiang, now thrumming with cafes, craft beer, yoga, and slogans about self-discovery, have become pilgrimage sites for the burnt out and the bliss-curious. Dali, in particular, earned nicknames like “China’s California” or even “China’s Bali” during the pandemic.
Local governments in Yunnan are grasping this opportunity with their own agendas. In Menglian’s town center, a new “coffee district” has emerged — dozens of cafés huddle together. The styles aren’t particularly niche, but they cater to a broad audience, and it’s busy even at night.
We found one called PicarCoffee, opened by a young Va woman who was away at a barista competition the day we visited. Her café sits in a hillside Dai village called Nayun, where homes cling to the slope and the ancient residence of a Dai king still stands in fading glory. At the mountain’s peak, a Buddhist temple watches over it all.
That day, the café was quiet. A few children played in the courtyard, and a handful of digital nomads — like us — sat typing away. Compared to the polished energy of Dali or Lijiang, Menglian felt almost forgotten. Stores opened late, often not until 2 p.m., and some hung signs saying they would open “if fate allows.”
In hyper-efficient China, this languor felt radical.
PicarCoffee, like many of these spaces in Yunnan, is more than a café; it’s also the owner’s home.
She transformed the first floor of her house into a warm den lined with books and magazines, aesthetic choices that would not feel out of place in Shanghai. Alongside the drinks, she sold handmade crafts woven by ethnic minority artisans, and of course, locally grown coffee beans.
The coffee culture here runs so deep that everyone sounds like an expert. “Our beans still aren’t as good as the international ones,” a taxi driver told us on the way to Mangmang Village Coffee Community, a coffee farm.
“Last year, Brazil had bad weather, so our beans had a window to shine. But in a normal year, it’s hard to compete.”
“Everyone’s investing in coffee, I once drove a laoban from Guangdong who rented a whole mountain.”
“But the fate of farming is up to the sky.” He shrugged, a gesture that seemed to contain the whole ethos of Yunnan.
Life here follows the mountains and the seasons. People are gentle because they’ve learned they have no control over nature, and they are ok with it.
A new Chinese dream
That farm, we learned, also houses a nascent digital nomad community. Despite being in its pilot phase, it had received 126 applications for its three-month trial — 94 were accepted. A micro-society in the making.
Mangmang is not just a business, but also a social project, the founders told us.
At the foot of the mountain, you see the new buildings gleaming: a yoga studio, a coworking hall, a pool, a café, with amenities comparable to those in tier-1 cities.
At lunchtime, residents gathered in the canteen. The kitchen was humming with quiet coordination. I watched them forming something like a tribe.
I’ve never been drawn to communal living, but I see the appeal here: the ease, the space, the cost, the companionship.
Their job recruitment ads on WeChat listed: coffee worker, creative professional, cross-disciplinary explorer, or simply…a soul in search.
In the West, a digital nomad is a remote worker with a laptop. In China, the term is looser, more generous. At Mangmang, it’s less about working from the beach, and more about building something new — according to its official WeChat, it’s different because Chinese young people are eager to foster a culture, a dream, a life untethered from tier-one expectations.
The dream brings together those who want to get away from the cities, and the locals who are not just hosts or waiting staff, but also creators and makers in their own right.
The small business owners we met on the way during our Yunnan trip — either the coffee shop owner, or fashion boutique shop founders, craftsmen — were all from here and chose to stay.
They are the beneficiaries of China’s lie-flat generation, which favors non-native agriculture products, tourism and new forms of communal living.
The future, for the locals, might still be rooted in their home soil. A place where the land provides — tea, coffee, oh, and 80% of China’s avocados — and where, if the weather allows, anything might bloom. 🔚
Last words: In 2021, I went on a solo reporting trip there to cover the convertible rental business, which is still so crazy to me! And here’s another wonderful travel journal from our friend
:
I am a huge coffee fan so this story appealed straight away – thanks for sharing!