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历史名城苏州，距离国际大都市上海约一小时车程，其境内运河纵横交错，景致独特。河岸两旁，古老的白色建筑整齐排列，诉说着岁月的沧桑。一个世纪前，这些建筑内或许藏匿着几间传统茶馆，当地人常聚于此，或聊家长里短，或洽谈业务往来。
Today a visitor is more likely to find shops serving a different kind of beverage. There are dozens of Starbucks outlets in Suzhou, as well as other coffee sellers. Some even look like old chaguans—from the outside at least.
而今，游客踏入此地，更可能邂逅各式饮品店铺，体验不同的味蕾之旅。苏州城内，星巴克门店林立，其他咖啡店亦多达数十家，有的甚至巧妙融入老茶馆的风貌，至少在外观上，令人恍若隔世。
Between 2010 and 2022 coffee consumption
per person in China rose fourfold, according to the International Coffee
Organisation, a group of producer and user countries. (China’s GDP per person
doubled over the same period.)
国际咖啡组织——一个由生产国和消费国共同组成的团体——的数据揭示，自2010年至2022年间，中国人均咖啡消费量实现了四倍的增长。（同期，中国人均GDP亦翻了一番。）
The average Chinese person still drinks a fraction of the amount of coffee
guzzled
by the typical American: 0.1kg per year compared with 4.7kg. But last year China surpassed America, becoming the country with the most branded coffee shops (places like Starbucks) in the world, as the World Coffee Portal, a research firm, reported. China is home to nearly 50,000 such outlets.
尽管如此，中国人年均咖啡消费量仍远低于美国：两者分别是0.1公斤和4.7公斤。然而，据研究公司世界咖啡门户报道，令人瞩目的是，去年中国已超越美国，成为全球品牌咖啡店（如星巴克等）数量最多的国家，中国此类门店数量已有近5万家。
The early history of coffee in China is
fuzzy. By some accounts it was Danes who opened the first coffee shop in the
country in the 1830s. The drink didn’t catch on, in part because the Qing
dynasty took a dim view of foreigners and sought to curb their influence.
咖啡在中国的早期历史，犹如雾里看花，不甚清晰。有说法认为，丹麦人于19世纪30年代在中国开设了首家咖啡店。但遗憾的是，这种舶来品并未迅速流行开来，部分原因在于清朝政府对外国文化的消极态度及其遏制外国影响力的努力。
A record from that period described coffee as a “black liquor, which the foreign devils drank after meals, saying it can help with digestion”. A century later Lu Xun, a celebrated author, wrote that he didn’t drink the stuff: “I always thought it was for the foreign excellencies.” He and most other Chinese people preferred tea.
