Had a good cup of joe lately in China? Cup of joe? According to “Wikipedia”, the expression, “cup of joe” came into being as follows:
Etymology
There is an attribution to Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) who, as Secretary of the U.S. Navy under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, was said to have abolished the officers’ wine mess. And thus coffee became the strongest drink aboard navy ships known as “a cup of Joe”.
This theory does not stand up to scrutiny.
The most likely source is as a shortened form of ‘a cup of jamoke’ – which was a common reference to coffee, its being a compound of Java and Mocha. There are examples of the jamoke usage throughout popular culture including in the Preston Sturges movie Hail The Conquering Hero (1944).
Alternative forms
Noun
cup
of
joe
(
plural
cups of joe
)
-
(
chiefly US
,
idiomatic
) A cup of
coffee
. [
quotations ▼
]
So what does this have to do with China? Well, the website, “[context China]” (
www.contextchina.com
) reported in an article yesterday, May 8, 2013, that two big coffee giants, Starbucks and Nestle, are about to go “bean to bean” in a battle for the hearts, minds, and coffee cups of China. The article, “Starbucks, Nestle Square Off In A Bid For Dominance Of China’s Coffee Market”, by Robert O’Brien, pours out the facts for you below:
“Could Nestlé, the world’s largest food producer, be Starbucks’ chief rival in China? Early last month, the Swiss company
announced an investment of nearly $16 million
in the establishment of a Pu’er, Yunnan-based coffee farming institute, warehouses, and a laboratory. Nestlé’s new emphasis on Yunnan as a major coffee production center is only the latest development pushing it and Starbucks, which
established a Farmers Support Center in Yunnan last December
, toward direct competition. Among the others are their dueling efforts to produce a new coffee product made with Yunnan beans, their battle in the instant coffee business, and Starbucks’ plan to sell coffee and pre-made drinks in Chinese supermarkets.
Much has been written about
the proliferation of cafes on the Chinese mainland
. Starbucks plans to have 1,500 stores in China by 2015. Costa Coffee has stated that they will have 2,500 cafes in China by 2018. Even McDonalds has gotten in on the act, opening small coffee outlets on street corners across the country. All of these developments have been driven by surging demand for coffee in China – the Chinese coffee market has grown at rates of 15 percent annually in recent years and is expected to expand from its current size of 70 billion renminbi ($11.27 billion) to 1 trillion renminbi ($160.94 billion) over the course of the next ten years.
Significantly less attention has been paid to how the evolving strategies of Nestlé and Starbucks stand to bring them into direct competition for dominance of China’s coffee market. For most of the last decade, the two companies have occupied very different realms in the structure of China’s coffee consumption. Nestlé produces
Nescafe,
which controls 75 percent of the instant coffee market in China
. Instant coffee still reigns supreme in the country,
comprising between 80 and 90 percent of all coffee consumption
, according to the China Daily. Starbucks, meanwhile, has been focused on expanding its footprint in the Chinese market through the opening of new stores. Unlike Nescafe, which is cheap and can be found in most Chinese grocery stores, Starbucks has traditionally offered more expensive products sold exclusively through their stores. In short, Nescafe has been a ubiquitous brand – available to the masses – and Starbucks has been a lifestyle brand – targeted at upper middle-class white collar workers.
Over the course of the last few years, however, the two companies’ China strategies have grown more similar. One example of this phenomenon is the newfound emphasis both companies are placing on Yunnan coffee. In December, Starbucks founded its first Asia-based Farmer Support Center in Pu’er Yunnan. At the opening ceremony for the Center, the company’s president for China and Asia-Pacific, John Culver, stated that
“we believe Yunnan will play an important strategic role in our long-term supply of premium
arabica
coffee.”
In March, Culver announced that the company is planning on creating and marketing a special Yunnan variety of coffee.
Nestlé, for its part,
announced two very similar developments
, only in reverse order. In January, Nestlé revealed that it is developing a new coffee product using Yunnan beans. In April, the company announced the creation of its new farming institute.
Instant coffee and single-cup coffee machines are two more areas where the companies have begun to compete. Nestlé has long dominated China’s instant coffee market. Starbucks
introduced its VIA instant coffee to China
in April 2011. Nestlé’s coffee products are widely available in Chinese grocery stores. Starbucks is
currently considering the prospect of selling ground coffee and bottled drinks in Chinese grocery stores
. The two companies will be pushed even further into direct competition when Starbucks launches its new Verismo coffee maker in the Chinese market, where Nestlé’s.
No official date has been announced for the Verismo’s introduction to the mainland, but Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is on the record as saying
it will happen sometime this year
.
For the time being, Starbucks and Nestle are still catering their products to very different audiences – the relatively wealthy and the more general consumer, respectively. The combination of rising incomes with the continuing evolution of the companies’ strategies, however, seems destined to draw them into a fiercer battle for dominance in China’s rapidly expanding coffee market. With both betting big on China – Starbucks is in the midst of a drive to triple its stores on the mainland and its CEO has said
the Chinese market could someday be the company’s biggest
; Nestlé
announced a doubling of its investment in China-focused coffee operations
in late 2011 – this battle is likely to have significant consequences. The world’s most successful coffeehouse chain and the world’s largest food producer may not seem like the most natural of competitors, but in China, market opportunities and corporate decisions have turned the two into definite rivals.”
So it appears there is a looming, epic, “coffee klatch” war on the horizon for all the many millions that partake of this brew that so many people rely on. Truly, China’s cup runneth over.
Hawkeye in China
Lex Smith