Recently, there is a niche coffee brand called “Verve Coffee Roasters” (hereinafter referred to as “Verve”), which has quickly become popular when Starbucks and Blue Bottle are in full swing for the specialty coffee market. Verve is not only favored by coffee fans, but also loved by Hollywood stars. It was once named one of The Most Important Drinks of Your Day by GQ. In 2013, the brand won the “Best Roaster in America’s Best Food Award”, which is called the “Oscars of the coffee industry”. However, as of September 4, 2018, Verve has only 11 stores in the world. How can Ta open one and one, and each one can amaze fans? Colby Barr and Ryan O’Donovan, the two brand founders of Verve who insist on the origin and pay attention to high-quality coffee industry, are college classmates. Because they also love the outdoors and water sports, in 2007, they came from the cold downtown San Francisco to Santa Cruz, a surfing paradise in the northern Bay Area, and opened the first Verve. Inspired by European cafes, Verve advocates the coffee life philosophy of “Farmlevel to Streetlevel”. F armlevel: The biggest feature of Verve’s coffee is the spirit of original coffee. Customers can directly taste the manor coffee directly from the origin and pay attention to the source of coffee production to get the flavor they want. Streetlevel: Verve advocates a street coffee culture. In addition to building their own coffee brand, they also try to create a coffee community. Gather a group of coffee lovers to sit down and chat about coffee and coffee aesthetics in addition to drinking coffee. Like other practitioners of the third wave of coffee, Verve values every aspect of coffee from seed to cup. Especially the cultivation and roasting of coffee beans, every detail and every aspect of the brand are strictly checked. Verve takes direct trade and pays more to get better quality green beans. In the store, Verve employees will choose different coffee makers, coffee pots, coffee dosage and water temperature according to each coffee bean, and there is no mistake in any step. If they feel that the coffee is not brewed to the best taste, they will tell the consumer to wait a little longer and then brew a cup of coffee for the consumer. In Santa Cruz, Verve has a group of loyal fans, and their passion for coffee comes entirely from the coffee philosophy shared by Verve. Although Verve is not expanding its stores quickly, each store it opens has created its own brand culture and characteristics in a rhythmic manner. This is conducive to further expansion at home and abroad. As of now, Verve has 11 stores: 4 in Santa Cruz, USA, 1 in San Francisco, 3 in Tokyo, Japan, and 3 in local conditions. Each store is designed with a California feel. In addition to coffee production, Verve’s store building has always been a topic of interest in the industry. The design of Verve stores is deeply influenced by the Scandinavian aesthetic style: simple and clean lines, spacious and open-plan operating tables, with a sense of unobstructed transparency. The design of stores in the United States is mostly Loft space, with outdoor areas where you can soak up the sun and enjoy the crashing of the waves. The interior of the store is spacious and bright, with wood and metal, which simply creates a stress-free coffee space. The Japanese store has different styles, and the store located in Omotesando retains the free and easy California feel. The store is as black and white as ever, and with a large number of wooden tables and chairs, it has a slightly American industrial style. The Shinjuku store, on the other hand, takes the refined neighborhood route, and the space of only about 60 square meters creates a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere belonging to Japan: the appearance of the store is a series of white iron-framed glass and mosaic bricks; the store is dominated by wooden bar seats, replacing the overly strong commercial atmosphere of ordinary seats. The relatively mini space is planted with greenery by hanging, and the bright lights shine on the colorful paintings on the walls to reveal a fresh and lively style. The style of the Kamakura store in Verve, Shinjuku District, Japan, is more fresh and natural. As soon as you enter the store, there is a thick log style. The paintings on the walls are painted by local artists in California, which is very cultural. The paintings on the walls of Verve’s Kamakura store in Japan. In terms of brand image design, V erve’s coffee cups and coffee beans and other packaging simply use color blocks as product labels, which are vivid and impressive. The store sells a variety of brewed coffee pots suitable for home use. The focus is on how to use these machines, and the official website has a detailed video introduction. In addition, Verve’s stores also sell a lot of brand-related merchandise, from magazines, clothes to hats, as well as a very original series of canvas bags, etc. A wide variety of specialty coffee is not inferior to Blue Bottle. Although Verve has far fewer overseas stores than Blue Bottle, both are from California and are deeply involved in the field of specialty coffee. Naturally, there is no lack of a comparison. This is like a silent contest between specialty coffees. The most talked-about thing is that in 2016 Verve entered overseas, and like Blue Bottle, they chose Tokyo, Japan as their first overseas store. Moreover, Verve opened its store on the second floor of the NEWoMan shopping mall at the South Exit of Shinjuku, while Blue Bottle is located on the first floor of the mall, riding directly to the “head” of Blue Bottle. Although in the Japanese market, Verve and Blue Bottle are both regarded as two masterpieces of Northern California. However, the biggest difference between the two is the coffee beans themselves: Verve flies coffee beans directly from the United States to Tokyo every week, and the headquarters sends people to Tokyo every two months for inspection; while Blue Bottle converts coffee beans to local when it enters Japan. In addition, Verve and Blue Bottle Ta have one thing in common: they are all original, direct stores, not franchise stores, which is also a successful way for them to maintain quality. Last September, Swiss Nestle announced that it would acquire a 68% stake in specialty coffee brand Blue Bottle for $500 million. For Blue Bottle, with the acquisition of Nestlé, the brand will usher in a stable and rapid development opportunity, which is expected to challenge Starbucks’ dominance. However, the sword has two edges. On the other hand, the outside world is also worried about the future development of Blue Bottle, which has always been independent in style, insists on details, specializes in fine coffee, and does not want to be joined. The brand style may also be full of variables. Even if both Nestlé and Blue Bottle emphasize that the management will not change, many people believe that Blue Bottle has long since departed from the core value and scope of these fans’ independent small coffee shops. This is obviously better for Verve, which focuses on products and consumer needs! Domestic specialty coffee market: consumer groups are distributed regionally and have a large development space. From the global boom brought by specialty coffee brands such as Verve and Blue Bottle, we can see: from the earliest instant coffee, to chain coffee shops that can be seen everywhere, and then to the global coffee wave 3.0 in 2009. After three coffee waves, consumers’ pursuit of coffee is getting higher and higher, and they realize that coffee is no longer a drink, but follows the delicate orientation and begins to pay attention to various aspects beyond the coffee itself, such as design, packaging, space, meal placement and surrounding goods. Today, in foreign countries, specialty coffee culture has become a part of daily life. Looking at China, in just 30 or 40 years, it seems that the influence of the first coffee wave has not faded, and the second coffee wave has begun rapidly with the arrival of brands such as Starbucks and competition. In recent years, following the transformation of the global coffee consumption trend, China has also begun to gradually emerge boutique cafes influenced by the third coffee wave. In China, this development is not linear, but has produced different consumption stratifications under different needs – people actively or passively choose coffee products that they approve of, driven by different regions and different concepts. Around you, there may be friends who are used to buying long-selling instant coffee in supermarkets or online, and it is easy to find coffee fans who occupy corner cafes in cities and enjoy coffee space, and more coffee lovers who like to explore the taste of hand-brewed coffee and specialty coffee. This is a unique coffee experience in China. In addition to the more scattered regions where the specialty coffee market is located, most of the boutique coffee shops in China will use their own roasted beans to obtain coffee raw materials. Baristas will first start to differentiate their product quality at the level of bean selection and roasting skills. In addition, in recent years, many boutique cafes in China have achieved their own rapid development through breakthroughs in coffee consumption scenes, and have also brought new weather and greater market space to the industry. In addition, the growing influence of “Internet celebrities” in specialty coffee and the emergence of new formats such as automatic coffee machines have also made the industry more diverse. Maybe, driven by the booming domestic specialty coffee market, Verve’s entry into China is just around the corner.
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