He attributed the success of Seesaw Coffee to factors including an early head start in the market, good locations, a solid team that comprises mostly of people from creative industries instead of catering, and above all, appealing stories about the intricate processes behind producing each of their coffee beans.

Wang Zhendong, director of Shanghai Coffee Association, agreed that the stories behind the coffee beans are what that young, well-educated and widely-traveled consumers in China seek as an alternative to "the easily accessible green and white Starbucks paper cups".

Furthermore, Wang believes that China's short history of sipping coffee might actually turn into an advantage for specialty coffee when compared with countries like Italy, where there exists a strong, if not stubborn, notion of how to make a cup of coffee.

However, Wang estimated that less than 1 percent of the cafes claiming to serve specialty coffee in Shanghai or in China would meet SCAA standards, although he noted that only a handful of coffee geeks would care about this.

Wang Xiaofeng, a Shanghai native, is among the handful. About two years after a trip to Spain, where a cafe and its good coffee saved her otherwise nightmarish experience, she got herself certified as a SCAA's Q-grader and a SCAE (Specialty Coffee Association of Europe) level-one roaster before opening her own cafe named Moon.

"It's never about making money," said Wang, whose small cafe is located within a residential building and can accommodate no more than 10 people.

"I guess sometimes it's the unfamiliar foreign culture that appeals to us."