Big Small Coffee Opens Spacious Second Branch in Quiet, Untapped Jingshan-Adjacent Hutong
Big Small Coffee ain't so little anymore.
What started as an aptly named Xiang'er Hutong café that could hardly fit one counter and a handful of tables and chairs, has now grown into a successful enough brand to open a second branch near Jingshan Park, with a third store on the way in the CBD to open later this fall. That success can mostly be attributed to founder Zhang Yipeng. She's a soft-spoken but diligent coffee enthusiast who has outfitted her café with unique items like rooibos tea that she brought back from a trip to South Africa. On top of that, she has sold those unique leaves at other cafés around town and promotes the opening of those new venues on her social media, promoting a refreshingly collaborative – rather than bitterly competitive – spirit.
Her Jingshan Park-adjacent Big Small branch opened on Saturday (Aug 28; it's situated in Shatan Hutong off Jingshan East Street). When we stopped by the place was packed with patrons not only sipping old big small favorites like rooibos and comparatively conventional café fare like Americanos and Ethiopian and Yunnan coffee, but also new items like the naturally sweet honeybush latte (RMB 25).
The place felt as much like a lounge as a café that day, in part thanks to the crowd's enthused vibe but also due to the menu's new boozy creations like rooibos ciders (RMB 30 per bottle and available in both sweet and dry varieties; tasting both of apple and the exotic sweetness of the South African tea). The new honeybush latte's flavor is also available in cider form (again, RMB 30 per bottle and available in dry and sweet options). We're hoping those party vibes can be found most evenings at this new Big Small, so that it can be a café by day and a lounge at night.
This new café is also nearly twice as big as the original Big Small, swapping a snuggly coziness in favor of a more breezy space, perfect for quickly grabbing a takeaway from the bar or for cracking open your laptop for a long session of caffeine-fueled work.
It's a success overall, and a welcome artisanal addition to a quiet hutong that has an exciting, untapped, lao-Beijing quality. Based on this, we can't wait to see what future twists Zhang will give to the Big Small brand when she opens her CBD café in the coming weeks because she's already set the bar high with her two hutong cafés.
Big Small Coffee (Jingshan Park)
16 Shatan Hutong (off Jingshan East Street; east of Beihai and Jingshan parks)
沙滩后街16号
More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @MulKyle
Photos courtesy of Big Small Coffee
