Thirsty Thursdays: Chinese Coffee in Little Likeng Village, Jiangxi Province, China

Last week’s thirsty Thursdays came from the Jiangxi Province of China, and this week’s one does too! While last week I wrote about how I sipped peach wine in the unknown town of Xiaoqi, today I recollect the morning spent sipping a cappuccino in Little Likeng village.

The thing that makes it most interesting for me is that it’s coffee. In China. OK so you can get coffee in most parts of China these days, and horrible brands like Starbucks have even opened stores in the big cities, but in remote villages this is a novelty.

However when you escape the madness of cities like Guangzhou, Shanghai and Nanchang you won’t see big name coffee brands anywhere!! (Thankfully) Yet you can find off the beaten track “coffee houses”. This coffee experience in the village of Little Likeng was my second time to try coffee in a remote part of China.

 

Previously I had a coffee in the village of Taxia (also known as Ta Pa Tsune) in the Fujian Province. China is full of surprises. So to this idyllic non-touristy, local and ancient village of Little Likeng. Little Likeng sits on a small river and is a village in the countryside of the Jiangxi Province, nice photo below…

I will write more about the village itself and the Jiangxi Tour but for now, while walking along the pretty streets by the river of Little Likeng, myself and my girlfriend felt the need to revitalize with a fresh cappuccino. I’m not the only travel blogger who uses this tactic, check out Wandering Earl’s post on “How to spend your first 20 minutes in a country”.

Coffee is a great drink to sit down, sip and suddenly have more energy afterwards! But even in remote villages of China, coffee doesn’t come cheap, which is peculiar as China is probably the cheapest country I have ever been to (except maybe Paraguay or Belarus…). A beer costs a low 5RMB (even in a bar), yet a coffee is a staggering 26 RMB. Amazing eh?! But not a rip off.

China does cheap beer and China has LOTS of tea. Coffee, however, for the most part is still a luxury in China. So at one of the few coffee houses along the river we sat down. Ordered two cappuccinos and enjoyed the view. My girlfriend ordered them in Chinese, but as these places become more touristy the locals and the people working in coffee houses, tea houses and hostels develop a knowledge of English. If I’d have asked for two cappuccinos in English here, I’d probably have been understood.

There were no other non-Asian people around. Not just in Little Likeng but on the entire Jiangxi Villages tour we did. I was the only foreigner (non Asian)! A bunch of Koreans and some Chinese did turn up in Little Likeng, but my presence raised a few eyebrows. We toured the village of Little Likeng on our own as we stayed in a hostel just opposite the village, you can stay in the village itself (lots of places offer accommodation).For the other remote villages we hired a driver (the easiest way to get to places like Jiangling).

The lady working in the coffee shop gave me a postcard to write and place on the wall there. Well she actually was giving me the postcard as a gift to send, but everyone else had put theirs on the wall. Mine went up there and was the only one written in English! As we relaxed and got that burst of energy we needed, it was time to explore the rest of this charming village!

My videos from drinking Chinese coffee in Little Likeng:

Thirsty Thursdays is an ongoing regular feature on Don’t Stop Living – a lifestyle of travel. If you have a bar, pub, drink, restaurant, brand or idea that you would like featured on Thirsty Thursdays, please get in touch via my contacts page or my advertising page. I’d love to hear from you, and I’d also love a free tea or a coffee! Cheers! Send it on…