A quick search for Frank Sterzer online brings up two seemingly different characters. On one hand, there's the seasoned automotive engineer and executive with over 20 years of experience working for automobile giants in both Germany and China. On the other, there's the owner of Bamboo Coffee Roasters, a small coffeehouse tucked away in Maoli, a village in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

For many, the transition from one life to the other reads like a modern version of Peach Blossom Spring, a Chinese fable about retreating into a secluded paradise. "People initially thought I wanted to retire here," Sterzer told Beijing Review. "It's best if they don't see what's happening behind the scenes."

The real behind-the-scenes story begins with the morning alarm at 6:30 a.m., followed by hours of coffee roasting. The store opens at 9:30 a.m. and stays open until late evening. Weekdays bring a steady stream of 40 to 50 customers, while visitor flow during weekends sometimes tops 400 in a single day.

For Sterzer, the decision to move to Maoli was never about fleeing the pressures of city life for idyllic repose. Instead, it was about experimenting with new blends and crafting unknown flavors—both in coffee and in life itself.

Beginning again 

For over a decade after arriving in China at the end of 2006, Sterzer lived what he calls a "typical expat life," taking on different roles in the automotive industry while drifting between cities. "Every two or three years, you are on the road again, ready to move to a new city," he recalled.

This nomadic life took him from Shenyang in Liaoning Province to Beijing, Chengdu in Sichuan Province and then to Shanghai, before leading him to Ningbo, where he met his future wife, Niuniu, in 2021 and later married her. In 2023, with the arrival of their daughter, Sterzer decided to leave his job and start his own business in Maoli, his wife's home village.

The shift was not a drastic change of character, but rather the fulfillment of a dream that had organically grown within him since childhood. "I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs," he said. "For me, it was always in the back of my mind—to have the freedom to be my own boss. It then just naturally happened."

Maoli was where this ambition finally took shape. Upon first visit, the village immediately reminded him of his hometown near Bonn in west Germany, with its mix of rural charm and easy access to urban life. Like his birthplace, Maoli is less than a 30-minute drive from the city center and a mere 10-minute drive from the metro line. Nestled beside a large reservoir and surrounded by vast expanses of bamboo and Chinese yew, the area boasts a 95-percent forest coverage rate—the result of decades of ecological restoration since the early 2000s.

The property Sterzer set his sights on was an abandoned stone cottage once used for cutting wood. Over the course of a year, he and his wife, with help from the villagers, renovated the building while carefully preserving its weathered door frames and timeworn wooden beams. "The door frames are so low that Sterzer has to stoop to enter, but he insisted on keeping them," Niuniu told Beijing Review.

"The main premise we set was that we did not want something new," Sterzer explained. "We wanted to maintain the original structure of the building, and with that, its cultural identity."

In June 2024, Bamboo Coffee Roasters opened its doors. The space was divided into two sections: A shopfront with a wide window that opens onto a quiet alleyway, and a roasting workshop, where gleaming coffee machines sit beneath a bamboo-clad roof. Unlike many contemporary coffee shops that offer everything from blended tea Americanos to stinky tofu lattes, the menu here is extremely simple, featuring only traditional staples such as espresso, cappuccino and macchiato.

For Sterzer, tradition is not a constraint but a conscious choice. "Someone recently asked me how I would describe my store—would it be old-fashioned?" Sterzer said. "You could say that, but that's exactly what makes us different."

Coffee's calling 

Coffee has been Sterzer's passion since childhood, but what drove him to turn that passion into a career was not just love for the brew, but the compelling business potential within China's rapidly evolving coffee culture.

When he first arrived in China in 2006, domestic coffee consumption was only beginning to move beyond Nestlé and other instant coffee brands to enter a new phase—one that was dominated by international coffee chains like Starbucks.

Over the past decade, he has witnessed yet another profound shift in China's coffee scene—the rise of specialty coffee. While the term is technically defined as coffee that scores over 80 on a 100-point scale set by the Specialty Coffee Association, Sterzer believes the true core of the trend lies not in competition or scores, but in elevating the coffee-drinking experience to a level of sophistication typically reserved for tea or fine wine.

"People are becoming more attuned to the subtleties of coffee and are increasingly seeking out unique coffee experiences," Sterzer said.

This growing population of coffee connoisseurs has not only fueled the rise of homegrown specialty coffee chains like Seesaw and Manner, but also the proliferation of boutique coffeehouses across China's countryside, where coffee has become a means of connecting modern life with nature and local cultures.

Sterzer was quick to recognize the trend, and he wasted no time to tap into it. In his roasting workshop, a dedicated corner serves as a mini-lab for testing new beans and devising new flavors. Above this space hangs a flavor wheel, a clock-like chart that visually categorizes the wide spectrum of coffee flavors, from fruity notes like strawberry to more unusual descriptors like petroleum.

"Chinese people tend to dislike sourness, so we avoid pushing too far in that direction," he said. "But beyond that, there's a whole world of flavors to explore."

"Every bean is unique, and that's the thrilling part," he continued. "Working with different beans and processing methods to create unique flavors—that's what we do here. We are hunting flavors."

Local goes global 

The hunt for flavors does not stop at the roaster but also extends to the store's snack offerings, which are regularly updated to feature local, seasonal produce. During strawberry season, fresh berries sourced from local farmers are transformed into cakes and jams, while summer menu includes a fermented wine made from yangmei, a tangy-sweet fruit for which Ningbo is best known.

As October ushers in the local orange season, the café sets up a juice bar by the window, where visitors can scan a QR code to buy freshly squeezed juice. All profits go directly to the orange farmers, not the store.

These seasonal supplies are part of Sterzer's efforts to support the local community. "In the village, we are all family," he said. "And if you come in as a foreigner, you try to be integrated and not stand apart as an outsider."

This commitment to integrating into the village is equally evident in his decision not to offer takeout coffee to prevent people from littering the area with disposable cups.

Recently, a new mix of ventures has taken root across the area, which now features bed-and-breakfasts, camping sites, fishing spots, small home-based restaurants and even a shared kitchen, where visitors can rent a stove to cook traditional rural meals.

As a local ecosystem for rural tourism gradually takes form, the café itself is also evolving. On June 30, 2025, Sterzer received the first-ever small food workshop license issued to a foreign-owned company in Ningbo—a milestone that signifies the business' transformation from a coffeehouse into a certified coffee roasting factory. 

This, however, is only the beginning. Looking ahead, Sterzer hopes to one day export his roasted beans to Europe and the Middle East. This, of course, presents a major challenge, as roasted coffee is best enjoyed within the first 30 days of being roasted.

But Sterzer is undeterred. Smoothing out the logistics and potentially developing his own supply chain will be much like the experiments he conducted in his lab—a journey into uncharted territories, where new possibilities await.

"It's exactly like creating a new coffee," he said. "You challenge what others consider the standard. Sometimes you fail, but when you make a breakthrough, that's what makes it all worthwhile."

(Reporting from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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