Coffee, culture, and the call of the grasslands on the Tibetan plateau

CHENGDU — Gonbu never developed a taste for coffee, and that remains true to this day.

But that hasn't stopped the 30-year-old Tibetan from opening a restaurant that serves coffee with a local twist: yak milk, highland barley and butter.

Growing up on the grasslands of Southwest China's Sichuan province, Gonbu spent his childhood days riding horses and herding yaks. He had never even heard of coffee.

Today, he is bringing the flavors of his childhood to visitors in the ancient town of Songpan, hoping to ignite interest in the nomadic culture behind them.

Gonbu runs a Tibetan restaurant in the town, which has a history spanning over 1,000 years. Located in Songpan county, where the average elevation exceeds 3,000 meters, the town was once a trading hub between southwestern and northwestern China. There, traders exchanged horses, medicinal herbs, and animal hides for tea and grain.

Born in Caoyuan village in Songpan's Maoergai township, he later studied Tibetan-Chinese translation at Northwest Minzu University in Lanzhou, Gansu province, where he tried coffee for the first time.

He was drawn to the atmosphere of coffee shops — "somewhere you can read a book or just sit for a while", as he put it.

He found similar places in other cities and wondered why the grasslands couldn't have one, too.

In 2019, Gonbu returned to Maoergai and opened a small reading lounge serving coffee. "Young people on the grasslands also need somewhere to relax and learn about the outside world," he said.

Over the next five years, he traveled to learn coffee-making and Tibetan cooking while studying how restaurants operated in cities.

He kept thinking about Songpan's ancient town. The county is a gateway to the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Jiuzhaigou Valley and Huanglong, and the town now has more than 10 businesses established by returning college graduates.