[O]ne startup Ethiopian coffee company is looking to open 100 cafés in China over the next three years.
Founded in 2016 by Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, the founder of successful shoe brand soleRebels, Garden of Coffee has already shipped thousands of pounds of hand-roasted coffee all over the world. There’s small-batch roasting, and then there’s Garden of Coffee. Roasters at Garden of Coffee roast each batch of coffee to order for individual customers using traditional Ethiopian clay roasters. The company’s roasting facility and two café locations are both located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Now, the company has announced a major expansion strategy into China. Quartz Africa recently published a story detailing Garden of Coffee’s partnership with Suzhou Reyto trading company, where Garden of Coffee says it will ship 12 tons of hand-roasted coffee to China in the first year of the deal, launch a major marketing campaign through the social media app WeChat, will place its product on the shopping site Taobao, and implement a subscription coffee service, as well as outlined its plan to open 100 café roasteries across the country by 2022.
Alemu says that her company is a part of the fourth wave of coffee, taking control of the means of production and adding value to coffee through preserving culture and promoting prosperity.
