The price of coffee in China

This appeared in The Millennial Source

Chinese startup Luckin Coffee Inc. is going head-to-head with Starbucks for supremacy in mainland China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently received a gift from Howard Schultz, the former chief executive officer of Starbucks Corporation.

The coffee giant’s former boss sent the Asian giant’s current boss a translated copy of his most recent book, “From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America.”

President Xi responded by sending Schultz a letter expressing his desire for increased cooperation between the United States and China. Schultz said it was a “great honor” to have received the reply.

Invasion of the baristas

Howard Schultz and the coffee chain he used to chair have grown familiar with China over the last two decades, as have many other coffee merchants. There has been and continues to be a rush by the coffee industry, particularly Starbucks, to expand into a massive Chinese market that has traditionally favored tea as its beverage of choice.

After opening its first store in China in 1999, China quickly grew to become Starbucks’ largest foreign market. The coffee monolith plans to increase the number of stores it operates in China — currently 4,700 in the…