Comparative dynamics of coffee–tea cultural spaces in two Chinese cities: Evidence from Qingdao and Jinan, 2018–2024

Xulan Li, Ying Zhang, Ying Wang, Xinwen Zhang, Yihan Wang, Yihan Fu and Fengyi Li

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 8, 1-22

Abstract: Coffee shops and teahouses are important everyday consumption venues through which changes in urban consumption-space organization can be observed. Existing studies have often examined them separately, leaving limited comparative evidence on how their coexistence, relative balance, directional change, and functional embedding differ across contrasting urban contexts. This study compares Jinan and Qingdao, two major cities in Shandong Province with different historical and functional settings, using annual point-of-interest (POI) data from 2018 to 2024 within a unified 500 m × 500 m grid framework. Coffee Ratio (CR), Hybridization Index (HI), and Cultural Transition Intensity (CTI) were combined with long-run cultural zones, temporal trajectory types, functional-zone context, and supplementary robustness checks to examine POI-observed coffee–tea venue patterns. The results show that coffee–tea venue change cannot be understood as a simple process in which coffee replaces tea. Jinan showed substantial overall expansion in coffee-shop and teahouse POIs, with total counts increasing by 64.6% from 2018 to 2024, while coffee share changed only slightly from 42.6% to 43.1%. By contrast, Qingdao showed little overall growth in total counts (+0.9%) but a marked compositional shift toward coffee, with coffee share increasing from 49.3% to 59.1%. Grid-level results further indicate that Qingdao had clearer coffee-oriented restructuring, a higher coffee-dominant share than Jinan, and more stable coffee trajectories, whereas Jinan retained a stronger tea-oriented base, higher coexistence balance, and more bidirectional adjustment. Functional-zone analyses showed significant contextual associations in both cities, with clearer functional differentiation in Qingdao and stronger links between mixed-use settings and cultural hybridity in Jinan. Overall, the findings suggest that POI-observed coffee–tea venue restructuring is better understood as differentiated reorganization characterized by coexistence, selective concentration, and uneven directional change rather than as a single linear process of substitution.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0355398

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0355398

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