Nestled beside a shimmering blue lake and encircled by rugged rock formations, Deep Blue is a charming coffeehouse in Anji, a quaint county in Zhejiang Province. Dubbed a "miniature Iceland" on Chinese social media, the café has become a must-visit for tourists eager to capture the perfect shot. Patrons often wait in line to snap a photo by one of its windows, which frame the breathtaking lakeside scenery.

Nestled in Hongmiao Village, the lake next to the coffeehouse—once an abandoned quarry pit—was turned into a tourist attraction by a group of young people in 2022. Cheng Shuoqin, in his 30s, is one of the operators of Deep Blue. In 2021, he returned to his hometown Anji to pursue business ventures amid a coffee and tourism boom in the county.

Anji, with a permanent population of about 600,000, has traditionally been known for its production of white tea, a rare type of green tea. However, in recent years, the county has seen strong growth in its number of coffeehouses and is currently home to around 300, surpassing Shanghai in per-capita terms.

"Opening in 2022, Deep Blue sold around 8,000 cups of coffee per day during the Qingming Festival holiday on April 4-6 last year, a record high across China. This year, daily sales during the same holiday (April 4-6) remained at a similar level," Cheng told Beijing Review, noting the café receives around 600,000 customers each year.

Green gains 

In June 2003, Zhejiang launched the Green Rural Revival Program, with the aim of renovating and beautifying 10,000 administrative villages and developing 1,000 of them into models of moderate prosperity. In China, an administrative village consists of one village or several adjacent villages separated by natural divides.

It was in Anji in 2005 that President Xi Jinping, then Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, first proposed the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets." Since then, the county has been engaging in ecological preservation practices.

Quarrying was once a major industry in Hongmiao but came to an end in 2012. Local authorities began working on restoring forest cover and improving water quality around the village's mining pit before collaborating with Cheng's team to put the pit to use.

The team currently has 127 members. Most of them are young people like Cheng and around 70 percent are from regions outside Zhejiang.

Their innovative solutions brought new life into the village, delivering collective benefits. "Beautiful scenery is a major appeal for tourists today. We have seized the opportunities and made Deep Blue an on-trend location for snapping social media photos," Cheng said. The team has also launched the Deep Blue Park around the café to expand its business.

Deep Blue has generated more than 6 million yuan ($820,000) in revenue for the village since it began operating. Today, local villagers and the village collective own 29 percent and 20 percent of the café, respectively.

To unlock the potential of Anji white tea, Shanghai native Li Yanyi, an entrepreneur born in the 1990s, launched a thematic tourism program in 2019 through public-private partnership with Xilong Township in Anji. Her team developed diverse projects including the Anji Creative Design Center, a youth community and a teahouse in the township.

Surrounded by lush tea fields, the teahouse, repurposed from an abandoned building, now operates as a year-round destination, attracting over 200,000 tourist visits in 2024. Visitors can immerse themselves in tea culture through hands-on tea-picking and tea-making experiences.

"We also plan to organize fairs where local villagers can sell tea and related products while helping them build their brands," Li told Beijing Review.

According to Li, Anji white tea offers superior beauty and anti-aging benefits compared to other teas, thanks to its unique natural growing environment. Her team is partnering with a Swiss plant stem cell research lab to extract compounds from the tea to develop skincare products.

A nest for 'nomads' 

Many rural areas in Zhejiang are embracing digital nomads, who use technology to work remotely. Digital nomads generally stay longer than tourists, giving them more time to enjoy the rural atmosphere. In Tianhuangping Township in Anji, a discarded factory has been turned into China's first dedicated zone for digital nomads—Digital Nomad Anji (DNA).

Operating since June 2023, the DNA community has provided living and working spaces to around 600 digital nomads. The space has capacity for 140 people to co-work simultaneously, with a 95.1-percent room occupancy and an average stay duration of 47.6 days.

Nearly half of the digital nomads in Anji are from Shanghai and Zhejiang, and over 60 percent of them were born in the 1990s, the community said.

Born in 1996, Zhang Jia worked in Shanghai before arriving in Anji in 2023. She is now a part-time customer service representative for the DNA community and a tour guide, and is also starting her own Anji-based second-hand trading platform.

"Since I settled down in Anji, I feel that people's social distance is shorter than in big cities. The DNA members share ideas and hold activities together, and interact with local villagers," Zhang told Beijing Review. She said the residents of DNA organize English courses for the villagers to help them better communicate with international tourists and have helped them design store posters.

Though Zhang's income has fallen to nearly one third of what it once was, she feels no anxiety—only the excitement of embracing a different lifestyle. Now, she can step outside anytime to immerse herself in nature and take a break from work.

Members of the community have also developed close ties with local peers. As rural areas continue to develop, many local young people are remaining in or returning to their hometowns to live and work, Zhang said.

Over the past three years, the DNA community has also hosted over 50 international digital nomads. They typically stay 15-30 days, with some staying much longer.

Among them was Andrew Mixter, an American designer. He learned about the community through a television program and then used DeepSeek, a Chinese AI assistant, to find its location. Initially planning just a three-day stopover, he ended up extending his stay for three extra weeks after experiencing life there and not finding the language barrier a challenge.

Talent attraction 

The Anji local government has been introducing favorable policies to attract and retain young people and, since 2022, more than 40,000 young people have moved to rural areas of the county to work or start businesses.

Lu Wenlong, an official with the county government, told Beijing Review that Anji introduced a shared-ownership housing scheme for young professionals in 2022, where property rights are co-held by local state-owned enterprises and homebuyers. Under this scheme, the enterprises cover 30 percent of the home price and claim 30 percent of the ownership.

The local government has also provided subsidies for housing purchases by young people, with over 600 already benefiting from the policies as of today, Lu said.

"Policies and funding alone are not enough to keep young people engaged in rural areas. They also need vibrant spaces to connect, collaborate and share their visions," he said. BR

(Print Edition Title: Countryside Calling) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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