Building China’s Coffee Frontier

OVERVIEW

When a Fortune 500 fast food company sought to reinvent the coffee experience in China, they looked to Heist to translate their technology-led approach into an experience that would work for customers based in the country’s still-emerging cities.

The fast food company came to Heist with an idea: to create cafes in shipping containers, allowing them to scale across the cities quickly. But that wasn’t all – they envisioned a fully technology-driven service that relied on robots and online services to deliver an experience with the same personal touch as a traditional coffee shop.

Heist teamed up with Beach, a Shanghai-based design studio, to embark on the process of creating a prototype for robotic coffee delivery, and an app to give dimension to the service’s customer experience. While relying on digital ordering and fully mechanised preparation and serving, prototype testers reported a fun, delightful, and fully satisfying experience – enough evidence to convince the fast food brand to bring the concept into development.

PROCESS

To design a prototype that was simultaneously efficient and gratifying, Heist designed its research efforts around one question: What must be understood about the human experience of coffee creation and consumption?

Traditionally, luxury bags and watches served as ways to increase social status. Heist found that China’s lower-tiered cities are moving on to new notions of luxury: coffee has caught on, and a hunger for information about its provenance and styles has come with it. No longer the second act to tea, hypercustomisation is now the norm in China. Carrying around a branded cup communicates more than any clothing label could.

With an understanding of how the coffee ordering and enjoyment process corresponds to people’s sense of self, Heist and Beach moved on to the prototype of a fully mechanized, digital experience that would give customers a sense of belonging and integrate into their daily routines.

A robotic arm prototype was set up in the back alleys of Shanghai’s French Concession to test the perception of coffee taste when served by a machine instead of a human. Multiple cup styles were tested, and an app that allowed users to choose everything from the type of bean to the roasting levels was developed.

The fast food brand chose to take the concept forward, and it is now in development, scheduled to launch in 20XX.