WUHAN — In a village in Central China's Hubei province, winter sunshine fell upon what looked like an ordinary farm house, while the fragrance of coffee lingering in the air seemed incompatible with traditional Chinese pastoral life.

But villagers in Xiangwan village of the city of Xiangyang have become used to frequenting this cafe, dropping in to relax after a day of hard work or sitting around a table for a gathering. On the door of the cafe a plaque bears its name — Hello New Villagers. "We used to entertain our friends at home. But now that we have this new cafe, I like to invite them to come here, sipping coffee and enjoying dessert," said villager Zhu Wenping.

According to Lang Huichen, co-owner of the cafe, it welcomed nearly 100,000 visitors in 2025, raking in more than 1.4 million yuan ($200,683). "On average we sell roughly 80 cups of coffee daily," she told Xinhua News Agency. "Our sales can reach around 150 cups per day on weekends."

Lang, 36, majored in art design and graduated in 2011, before becoming a civil servant in the local government of Xiangzhou district, Xiangyang. Inspired by the nationwide drive seeking rural vitalization, she quit her job eight years later, opting to visit rural areas in multiple provinces such as East China's Anhui and Zhejiang, and Henan in Central China, in pursuit of business opportunities.

Finally, she settled on Xiangwan, thanks to its rich tourism resources and solid agricultural foundation. Lang rented a 600-square-meter farm house with white walls and red tiles as the venue for her cafe, which opened in 2022.

Hello New Villagers has become more than simply a cafe for many locals. "I found that in many rural areas across the country, agricultural products, despite their good quality, don't sell well due to a lack of branding and stable sales channels," Lang said. "I can use what I have learned to help farmers."

She designed new packaging for such products, while also conducting livestreaming sessions on e-commerce platforms. Last year, she sold more than 5,000 eggs for villagers, among other products.

Yu Guiying, 60, is a village cadre who collects free-range eggs from villagers and sends them to the cafe so that Lang can assist with sales."Everyone is extremely happy to see new sales channels for their agricultural products," Yu told Xinhua.

In addition to improving packaging, Lang's cafe also launched special agricultural assistance packages. "Normally, we sell a single cup of coffee for over 20 yuan, but a set meal consisting of a cup of coffee, a stuffed bun and a free-range egg is on offer for only 9.9 yuan," she said.

The cafe, approximately the size of one-and-a-half basketball courts, is also a place of study for children, who do homework together there after school while waiting for their parents. In addition, it serves as a venue for a bakery class for women in the village, who learn how to make bread and cakes.

Since opening the cafe, Lang's team has expanded from two people to more than 10, including several youngsters who have returned to their hometown to pursue rural careers. They have also recruited villagers with disabilities to work as baristas. "Although they cannot talk, they are extremely meticulous in their work and the coffee they make tastes quite good," Lang said.

The cafe is part of a trend in rural China. In recent years, cafes in various forms have mushroomed in the Chinese countryside, often near lakes, mountains, forests, fields or orchards. Once a distant concept from the everyday lives of most ordinary Chinese people, coffee culture has garnered fans as China emerges as one of the world's fastest-growing coffee markets, with consumption projected to have exceeded 1 trillion yuan in 2025.

Village cafes have become a significant attraction for visitors from cities keen to indulge in natural experiences, while villagers also benefit from such visitors, who expose them to novel ideas from the outside world. Cafes further serve as catalysts for rural tourism development, reshaping the countryside and bringing new life to rural regions.

"Hello New Villagers has injected vitality into the countryside here," said Liu Fan, Party chief of Huanglong township, which administers Xiangwan. "With coffee as the medium and the village as the carrier, it has effectively driven the growth of rural tourism, broadened local employment channels and contributed to the prosperity of rural industries."

According to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, rural tourism visits in China for the full year of 2025 reached approximately 3.2 to 3.4 billion trips.

"Huge changes are taking place here. As infrastructure and facilities improve, tourists could end up spending a whole day in this village," said Lang. "The rural vitalization strategy has lent us the greatest confidence."

Xinhua