Shanghai continues coffee revolution with all-wood boutique

Robot 3 Studio completes Time More coffee atelier in Shanghai

(Image credit: press)

Local interior architecture firm Robot 3 Studio has lent its minimally-styled hand to a new coffee atelier in the heart of Shanghai. Adding to the slew of coffee shops across town, which number thousands, making your design mark in this caffeinated city is a tall order (and I don't mean a latte).

While the west increasingly turns to herbal teas, (MUJI is opening up a matcha pop-up in London next week), Shanghai is warming its hands with mugs of Joe. Starbucks placed its largest ever store in Shanghai in December 2017, and a new one opens every 15 hours across China. But smaller coffee ‘boutiques’ (as Robot 3 Studio dubs this one) are also on the rise; with countless cold-brew, hand-pour and other-such ‘hip’ concoctions bubbling away across millennial-propped countertops city-wide.

Time More – the coffee appliance manufacturer behind this new wooden retreat inside Hong Kong Plaza in the Huangpu District – brings an exacting design-eye to proceedings. Founded in 2012 by ‘several coffee lovers’, the press note claims Time More to be ‘the best original hand-washed coffee appliance in the country'. Indeed, Time More is best known for its hand-held appliances that allow for cafe-quality coffee at home or on the go; a Red Dot Design award adds weight to its self-accolade.

If personalised coffee on the go is the big sell for Time More, what could be the benefit of opening a bricks and mortar (in this case, copper and wood) store? More than a simple shop, the new Time More location is a ‘Hand Brew Coffee Experience Center', where visitors can pour their own coffee, to their own exacting standards using Time More products, under the guidance of a trained Barista.

The environment in which the coffee is brewed is crucial, too. ‘We understand this store as a world about "time",’ Robot 3 Studio explains. ‘Coffee beans are alive, making, grinding, extracting, and every step of a cup of coffee requires patience and concentration. We've created a quiet world; time is quietly flowing here. The space is developed in a binary way, moving and static, just and soft, inside and outside, positive and negative. This gives the entire space a certain tension.’ Tension, it seems, that's unwound by the perfect hand-pour.

Time More coffee shop Shanghai, wide view

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Time More website

ADDRESS

Hong Kong Plaza
282 Huaihai Zhong Road, Huangpu District
Shanghai, China

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Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.