Shenzhen

Donkey Bar is surrounded by plants and flowers, and is essentially a refurbished old industrial house. Both the cosy decor and the country-style indoor space make the place stand out in the area. Even though "bar" is in the name, the place is more of a café, and the signature drink is grapefruit tea.

Black Stamps Jazz Coffee is, as the name suggests, a jazz cafe. It's really more of a bar, however, one that plays live jazz music with the occasional blues and electro. It is popular among expats and is a nice place to relax and spend a cosy afternoon. Their signature drink is a Black Stamps Special.

Johandy is a café studio that only makes hand-poured coffee. The place has quite a reputation in the business, for this is also a coffee bean roasting studio that caters to many cafés in Shenzhen. They have over 30 kinds of coffee beans and every month, they only sell the best 7 in the studio. If you want to have some high-quality coffee, this is the place to go.

Seesaw is a café chain from Shanghai that serves great coffees. The brand is famous for having original cups and combinations full of creativity that are certain to make you smile. Some of the most interesting cups are Yirgacheffe & Tonic, milk tea covered with pop rocks, and milk ice cream ball with an espresso shot. They also have a rare kind of beans from the Yunnan Province of China that are worth trying.

Mix Coffee is another original creative café that mixes Chaoshan style street food and coffee. Not only that: you can have some authentic street food in the café, but they (in some cases) literally put some into the coffee! The most popular cup is Haishihua Coffee. Haishihua is a traditional Chaoshanese gelatinous dessert, which Mix Coffee uses in its iced coffee – you cannot find this combination anywhere else in the world.

Triangle Coffee is animal-friendly, so animal-friendly, in fact, that if you bring your canine friend along, you can get a 10 RMB discount. They also have self-roasted high-quality coffee beans, a common trend among Shenzhen's emerging hip cafes. What really makes it stand out, however, is that they have authentic Japanese Matcha, which isn't easy to come by.