Starbucks opened a new coffee innovation park in east China's Jiangsu Province on Tuesday, marking the global beverage chain's largest investment outside the United States and its first strategic investment in the Asia-Pacific market.

With a total investment of 1.5 billion yuan (around 220 million U.S. dollars), the Starbucks China Coffee Innovation Industrial Park, located just to the west of Shanghai, is the company's largest intelligent coffee production and logistics base in China.

Along with the coffee roasting factory and logistics center, it has also integrated a coffee experience center, making it the first global innovative industrial park to do so. The opening drew crowds of visitors eager to view the coffee-making process, from cultivation and blending to roasting and presentation.

"In the past, I would have to go to the U.S. to visit a coffee factory like this. But now, China offers an even bigger scale for such visits," Pan Sihua, a visitor, told CGTN reporter Tuesday.

"As a customer, I personally feel safer and more trusting when I can see the entire process that goes into making my cup of coffee," said Gu Yifan, also a visitor.

For consumers, one major change is that all Starbucks stores in China are gradually starting to use locally roasted coffee beans instead of importing them from other countries.

"Previously, Starbucks had six coffee roasting factories globally, five in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands. Now, with Starbucks China Industrial Park, China becomes a new key location in Starbucks' worldwide coffee roasting," said Silvia Jia, a coffee ambassador of Starbucks China.

Soon, high-quality coffee beans from over 30 countries and regions, including China, will be roasted at the park, supplying more than 6,000 Starbucks stores across the country in more than 250 cities.

The company intends to grow that number as well, with plans to reach a total of 9,000 stores in 300 Chinese cities by 2025.
Starbucks' global CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, recently in a statement called China the company's biggest and fastest-growing international market, saying this investment reaffirms the American coffeehouse chain's strong belief in the Chinese market.