85C Bakery Cafe

85°C Bakery Cafe. Note: in the midst of the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, 85°C Cafe posted a sign stating that they don't use any products from China

85 °C Bakery Cafe (Chinese: 85度C; pinyin: 85 Dù C) is a Taiwanese chain of coffee shops and self-serve bakeries run by Gourmet Master Co., Ltd. The company, with an estimated yearly revenue of $200 million, was founded in 2004 by tea shop owner Wu Cheng-Hsueh and has over 325 branches located in Taiwan,^[1] Australia, and the United States. Known as the "Starbucks of Taiwan", in 2009, the company opened its first US location in Irvine, California.^[2][3]

History

When Wu Cheng-Hsueh was having coffee with his wife, the idea came to him that he could serve coffee and breads for customers at a low price. He used to have a barbershop, a shoe-material processing plant, a marble factory and bubble-tea and pizza chain stores.^[4] Wu Cheng-Hsueh, president and founder of 85℃ Bakery Cafe, opened the first shop in Bao-Ping, Taipei County, in July 2004. The shop was soon serving around 2000 guests per day and selling over 2000 cups of coffee. He opened a second shop in Yuan Toun, Taipei County, in August 2004. Following the success of the two stores, a third store was opened in Goun Yi, in Taichung City, which marked the beginning of the franchising name 85℃ in November 2004. The name "85C" refers to Wu's belief that 85 °C (185 °F) is the optimal temperature to serve coffee.^[5]

In 2006, they opened the first store in Sydney, Australia. A year later, the first store was built in Shanghai, China. With a rapid business expansion, the first store in US was opened in 2009 and Hong Kong in 2012.

It was listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in November 2010 with 3.85 million shares in its IPO.^[6]

Type of restaurant

It is a self-serve bakery. The customers use a tray and tongs, and select the breads that they want. After that, the breads are paid for and bagged at the till.^[7]

Products

85℃ Bakery Cafe sells breads, cakes, and drinks. The Irvine branch that opened on 26 September 2009, is the company's highest grossing store.

Breads

The store bases the majority of its sales on pastries. The breads incorporate European, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Danish styled flavors, in 80 varieties. The slogan of the store is "Fresh Bread". The two top sellers are Marble Taro and Brioche.^[8]

Cakes

The regular size of cake is 8", with 10 styles ranging from the Italian Tiramisu to the German Black Forest to the Taiwanese Taro cake. The only 6’’ cake is the blueberry cheesecake. The full month size has five flavors.

They have twenty kinds of cake slices and cups with coffee, mango, strawberry, orange and chocolate flavors.^[9]

Drinks

One of their products is the Sea Salt Coffee, made by sweetening their iced Americano and adding a sea salt whipped cream on the top. This coffee has been featured on TIME Magazine, CNN, and NPR.^[10] The concept of this drink supposedly came from the Taiwanese habit of sprinkling salt on fruit to bring out the sweetness. In addition to tea and smoothies, 85 °C Bakery Cafe also sells regular coffee such as vanilla cafe latte, mocha, cappuccino, caramel latte, etc.

Fridge breads

85C have a category for breads needed to be kept in a cool temperature includes cheese bites, cream cheese custard tart, chocolate cream cheese slice, chocolate swirled, coconut custard and matcha red bean sponge roll. They have four kinds of half-moon sponge cakes: almond, coconut, blueberry, and strawberry.

Others

85C Bakery Cafe has toast such as rum raisin, multigrain, whole wheat, white and milk toast. For special occasions, they will have different kinds of breads and cakes.

Locations

85C Bakery Café in Suzhou

• Taiwan: 478 stores
  • 225 regular stores
  • 74 Bakery
  • 179 24-hrs stores
• China: 385 stores (63 in Shanghai)
• Hong Kong: 4 stores
• Australia: 5 stores
• United States: 17 stores

See also

• List of coffeehouse chains
• List of companies of Taiwan

References