'Not just coffee'

"The Starbucks brand continues to resonate with the Chinese consumer," John Culver, president of Starbucks China and Asia Pacific, said in an article on Starbucks' website. The Chinese market has become so important that he rates it as "our second home market outside of the United States".

Zou Deqiang, a professor studying consumer behavior at Fudan University, believes Chinese consumers are willing to pay "unreasonable" prices for a nontraditional beverage because they are buying more than just coffee.

"In China, Starbucks is not just coffee anymore," he said. "It represents a Western lifestyle. Some people in China want to live like people live in the developed countries so, to some extent, drinking a cup of coffee that people in the US drink helps them fulfill that dream."

A lot of people can't really tell good coffee from bad, Zou said, but that doesn't keep them out of Starbucks. If they hold paper cups with the Starbucks logo, it gives them the illusion that they live better than those who don't drink Starbucks.

The foreign allure

Zou's comment sheds some light on some Chinese consumers' obsession for foreign brands, most notably Apple's iPhone and iPad.

The craze was illustrated by the failed introduction of the Apple iPhone 4S in Beijing in January. Apple didn't open its flagship store and a frustrated crowd, which had waited all night, threw eggs at the store's gleaming glass walls. Many in the crowd were migrant workers hired by scalpers, who wanted to take advantage of demand that far exceeds supply. Apple shifted sales online to prevent scalping.

A student in Henan province went to the extreme. Local media reported in June that he sold his kidney for about 20,000 yuan and used the money to buy an iPad and an iPhone.

The iPhone 4S introduction in China last month filled the plaza outside Apple's store in Sanlitun, Beijing. Many buyers were working for scalpers, and Apple moved the smartphone's sale to the Web. Lin Meng / for China Daily