Coffee shop shifts from Shanghai to Brandon

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This article was published 11/05/2020 (2128 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While established food and beverage outlets are trying to get back to business as usual during the COVID-19 pandemic, the people behind H Coffee are officially opening their doors for the very first time today.

Owner Qiaoya Liu told the Sun that the coffee shop’s soft launch is both thrilling and nerve-wracking at the same time, since opening a new business during a global pandemic is largely uncharted territory.

“It is very exciting, but I have concerns, because right now … it is very complex,” she said on Friday, referring to the provincial restrictions that all businesses must abide by in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

But Liu and her husband Robin are no amateurs when it comes to the art of making and selling these kinds of beverages, since they ran a previous version of H Coffee — which stands for happy, home and health — in Shanghai for four years.

“My husband is a very big coffee fan,” she said. “He dreamed of having a coffee shop for about five to 10 years. At last, we had the funds to build a coffee shop in a hospital.”

However, Liu revealed they eventually grew tired of Shanghai, feeling that the hustle and bustle of living in an urban area with 24 million people wasn’t a great place to raise their two children and run a business at the same time.

“We wanted a very small and quiet place to spend more time with our family,” she said. “So we decided to change our location.”

Liu and her family eventually emigrated from China to Manitoba, since the Prairie climate is similar to the province of Xinjiang, where she grew up.

After arriving in Brandon in July 2019, it didn’t take long before the pair started putting the wheels in motion to bring H Coffee to Canada, purchasing a prime retail location inside the Sunset Mall in November.

Six months and thousands of dollars worth of renovations later, Liu said they are finally ready to serve up their unique brand of coffees, teas, lattes and other specialty drinks to the public.

Liu also recruited Brandon University student Carthy Caswell to help get H Coffee ready for its soft launch, since he already has two years of working as a barista under his belt.

Outside of being glad to have a job during the pandemic, Caswell told the Sun he’s looking forward to sharing his passion for coffee with the public, since this business will be focusing on making specialty drinks and using high-quality ingredients.

“I know everyone who is here really shares that deep passion for coffee,” he said on Friday. “So I’m ready to share that with Brandon and really elevate people’s knowledge about specialty drinks.”

Liu said she will be taking steps to ensure H Coffee is a safe place to visit during the pandemic. These measures include not accepting cash, constantly cleaning every surface in the store and keeping the number of customers allowed on the premises to a minimum.

Even with all these restrictions in place, Liu is hoping to provide Brandon coffee lovers with a great-tasting product and a relaxing atmosphere in an attempt to pay people back for the warm reception her family has received in their new home community.

“We like it here,” she said. “The people are very friendly and are very nice.”

H Coffee is located at 60-3300 Victoria Avenue and will be open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

 

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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