Known abroad as the “Starbucks of Taiwan,” 85°C Cafe moved across the ocean in 2008. Five years earlier, founder Wu Cheng-hsueh, inspired by his various visits to bakeries within nice hotels and restaurants, wondered if he could create similar products but at a much lower price to cater to the general public.
“What he wanted to create was a bakery that had five-star quality products—pastries, bread, cakes, coffees, and boba milk teas—but at affordable prices where it could become an everyday item,” says Dave Lazaro, director of marketing. 85°C Cafe opened its first location in Taiwan in July 2004.
The 85°C moniker comes from what Cheng-hsueh considered to be the perfect temperature to brew espresso. With its standard of excellence built into the name, this motto would flow into the creation of 85°C Cafe’s other items as well. “Try[ing] to do things perfectly when you’re baking, when you’re decorating cakes, when you’re brewing coffee, when you’re serving guests, trying to be as perfect as you can when you’re executing those things,” says Lazaro. “So it was sort of that inspiration.”
After the brand’s success in Asia prompted expansion into China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Australia, moving to America was a logical choice. “A lot of Asian bakeries, and especially Taiwanese brands, have been moving to the U.S.,” Lazaro says. The initial location in Irvine, California, had a two-hour-long line during its grand opening.
Abroad, the brand is called 85°C Daily Cafe. In Taiwan, Lazaro notes, the drinks are “the driver” for customers, while in the U.S., bread and drinks are equally popular. In America, its best-selling food items are the Milk Pudding Bread and ChocoBun treats, while its biggest drinks are the famed sea salt coffee, strawberry matcha latte, Thai tea, and Vietnamese coffee.
Lazaro joined 85°C Cafe in February 2020, but says he had been visiting the cafe “pretty much since they opened.” Before Lazaro joined the team, 85°C Cafe had already begun taking off across the West Coast, with locations in Arizona, Utah, and Hawaii.
Now, the brand is at 83 American locations. Last year, the East Coast was finally given a taste of the brand’s best-selling Sea Salt Coffee with Cherry Hill, New Jersey, soon followed in January by a Queens, New York, location in Flushing’s Chinatown neighborhood.
“When we went to Flushing and New Jersey, we weren’t sure what to expect,” Lazaro says. “We weren’t sure if our brand recognition would be there. But surprisingly, it turned out well. We had lines wrapped around the mall and a one to two-and-a-half-hour wait.”
“Typically, our grand openings will do about $20,000 to $30,000 in one-day sales on each of the days of a Friday, Saturday, Sunday grand opening,” he continues. “That gives you a senseof how popular our openings are.”
Despite making the big move to the East Coast market, the uniqueness of the bread and specialty espresso coffees already seem to have made their mark.
Peter Sun is an area manager for 85°C Cafe and is based in the Dallas area. Helping out at the new and already bustling NYC store, he has spent two weeks training recent hires in the front of the store.
“The breads and cakes, everything is made fresh. It’s a challenge,” Sun says. “Every morning when I come in, I’m so excited. I get to learn something.”
With over 55 varieties of bread and 30 different pastries available in store, Sun says that before the pandemic, the display cases were open with tongs to grab items like a traditional Taiwanese bakery. Now, all treats are packaged in a thin layer of plastic, which has boosted takeout orders.
“Anything with the sea salt whipped cream, I love it,” Sun says. Lazaro and Sun both say the sea salt beverages are their favorites. Lazaro is a fan of the sea salt-topped matcha while Sun’s go-to is the sea salt coffee, which is a sweetened Americano with a heaping layer of salty foam.
Any big matcha fan will know that quality is key. “The matcha we sell is a representation of the belief that Mr. Wu had in the beginning of high-quality products at affordable prices.” While there could have been easier and cheaper methods, 85°C Cafe, always set on perfection, uses premium-grade Shokakuen Matcha sourced from Nishio, Japan.
Currently, there are about 40 chefs who help create and sustain the bakery menu.
In May, 85°C Cafe will launch multiple flavors of a new blended drink as well as a bubbly soda series, with flavors like grapefruit, yuzu, and lavender. Lazaro says the brand will sell bottled coffees and milk teas in select retailers by the end of the year, but that by May the bottled drinks will be available in-store as well.
The brand has over 80 shops and only three are franchised—two in Hawaii and one in Utah. 85°C Cafe is looking for strong franchise groups that can efficiently run multi-units, with some in Chicago and Louisiana actively at work. The brand is on track to add 15 new stores in 2025.
85°C Cafe, Lazaro says, “has become [a place] where you come in as a family and there’s something for everyone, regardless of what your taste preferences are.”
