To be sure, Hai­nan is a desert for consumers of coffee. So far no Starbucks or funky independent coffee shops have opened on the island. Apart from those of Fu­shan Coffee, based in Hai­nan’s Cheng­mai County, there are simply no name cards to be had bearing the word “coffee.”

Cheng­mai County is located to the southwest of Hai­kou. A few scattered coffee shops have opened in the county seat of Fu­shan in recent years. Fu­shan was also the first place on the island where coffee was planted.

In the 1930s, Chen Xian­zhang, an overseas Chinese from Indonesia, planted some Robusta coffee trees in Fu­shan. Those were the first coffee trees on the island. Yet, because of Robusta’s high caffeine content and weak aroma, it has long been excluded from the ranks of high-quality coffee and is mainly used for canned or instant coffees.

Ten years ago, in the neighboring township of Da­feng, Lin Wen-ting planted some Arabica, the variety that accounts for 70% of the world’s coffee beans. Lin, a former deputy commissioner of Tai­nan County, had only recently arrived in Hai­nan and he had zero experience with coffee. Today, he is a fount of wisdom on the subject and never stops discussing it.

When Lin decided to plant coffee a decade ago, he predicted that commercialization would equal westernization and would therefore lead to the growth of coffee culture on Hai­nan. His dream was that coffee’s aroma would be found in every locale throughout the island.

Lin Wen-ting, former deputy commissioner of Tainan County, left the world of politics to seek his fortunes in Hainan. He has planted the island’s first Arabica coffee trees in Chengmai County.

Born in 1954, Lin was a founding member of the Democratic Progressive Party and long occupied senior party positions. In 1997 Tai­nan County commissioner Mark Chen selected Lin as his deputy. When they failed to regain the DPP’s nomination in 2001, Lin left the world of politics without hesitation, never to look back.

As far as Lin was concerned, by going to Hai­nan to invest in agriculture, he was simply moving up a business plan he had originally planned to pursue in retirement. During his time in county government he began to collect information related to agriculture on the mainland and the markets for agricultural products there. After perusing various documents, he discovered that only two places on the mainland produced coffee: Hai­nan and Yun­nan. Moreover, he knew people from Tai­nan who had already invested in Hai­nan, and they suggested that he try investing in agriculture there. In view of the fact that the fruit market on the mainland was already saturated, and thinking that “as Chinese do business with foreigners they will gradually acquire the habit of drinking coffee,” he decided to plant coffee.

“It’s a totally different career!” his former DPP colleagues would call and tell him before he left for Hai­nan. “Where’d you get the gall?” They worried that this old political hand might be making a huge financial mistake by going into agriculture.

“I’ve drunk coffee since I was young, but I haven’t laid eyes on a coffee tree more than three times,” Lin would tell them honestly. Then he’d add: “But I’ve done sufficient homework.”

In 2002 Lin’s farm—Cool Sir—formally opened. As a result of having done “sufficient homework,” Lin was convinced he had picked the right location.

He had been very picky about the planting environment. He spent two months traveling throughout Hai­nan before he finally found the ideal volcanic soil in Cheng­mai, not far from Hai­kou. He took out a lease on 400 mu (26.7 hectares).

Next he had to pick the variety of coffee.

“Before arriving in Hai­nan, I already knew that no one had planted Arabica. Throughout the world, 80% of coffee drinkers were drinking coffee made from Arabica beans, but no one here had ever tried it.” Lin found it inconceivable that Hai­nan was so out of step with international coffee market trends.

Consequently, once the Cool Sir Farm opened, he introduced varieties of Arabica coffee trees from Brazil, India and Taiwan. On trips back to Taiwan, he would take the opportunity to go to Yun­lin’s Gu­keng, Tai­chung’s Hui­sun and other areas where they farmed Arabica. He’d pick the brains of the farmers, getting tips on everything from planting to roasting.

But has Lin’s dream of having “the scent of coffee waft throughout the island of Hai­nan” been realized?

Huang Heping has given his all to researching the medicinal properties of reishi mushrooms, developing health-food products containing the mushrooms, and sharing with television audiences what he has gleaned about healthy living.

“The coffee bean industry in Hai­nan is still pretty weak,” explains Linus ­Chiang, whose U.B.C. Coffee lounges, which first opened in Hai­nan, are now franchised in major cities throughout mainland China. He notes that more than 80% of the Robusta in Hai­nan is imported from Vietnam. In other words, little more than one-tenth is grown by Hai­nan farmers themselves.

“What’s more, growing Arabica in Hai­nan is not so efficient,” says Chiang. Arabica is more suited to altitudes over 1500 meters, but the highest point in Cheng­mai is only about 500 meters.

“In all Hai­nan there are only about five Taiwanese farmers growing coffee,” says ­Chiang, holding up the fingers of one hand.

Lin notes that he has two basic types of clients for his Arabica beans: mainland bureaucrats who carry it away and customers in Shang­hai or Bei­jing who buy it via mail order.

As a result of his experience in government in Taiwan, Lin has received deferential treatment from mainland bureaucrats. He was hired as a consultant at the Hai­nan committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and, as well as using the position to give a voice to the interests of Taiwanese businesses and fight for their rights, he has provided suggestions on how Hai­nan­ese and Taiwanese businesses can cooperate.

As a consequence, Lin has tried to be a model farmer. He explains that with the current policy in Hai­nan of moving away from farming monocultures, he took 150 mu of old coffee fields that were damaged by a typhoon last September and planted them with pineapples instead. One the one hand he was conforming to local government policies, and on the other he was motivated by understanding the effects of climate change. Irregular blooming of the coffee trees was hurting his business.

Although there is a gap between reality and Lin’s original dream for coffee in Hai­nan, he is still convinced his dream wasn’t wrong. He sees himself as an ambassador of coffee, buying books related to coffee for mainland officials and hoping mainland people will follow their lead to learn more about coffee culture.

Lin Wen-ting, former deputy commissioner of Tainan County, left the world of politics to seek his fortunes in Hainan. He has planted the island’s first Arabica coffee trees in Chengmai County.

If Lin is the Taiwanese businessman in Hai­nan that serves as a missionary for coffee culture, then Huang He­ping, 54, is an apostle of rei­shi mushrooms.

Correctly predicting that a flood of investment money would target Hainan’s special economic zone, ­Huang He­ping engaged in real-estate development when he first came to Hai­nan in 1990. Yet, after he blindly invested money, the mainland authorities introduced new regulations in 1993, bursting the real estate bubble on Hai­nan. ­Huang, then 40, lost everything. He was so desperate that on several occasions he contemplated suicide.

In 1997, ­Huang He­ping had occasion to drive through Hai­nan’s central mountains near Mt. Wu­zhi. His eyes were attracted to the fallen trees in the forest on either side of the road, and to the mushrooms that were growing on them. Back then his wife was battling cancer. Wanting to gain a better understanding of the health benefits of rei­shi mushrooms, which are regarded as a superfood in traditional Chinese medicine, he pooled a little money from friends, which he used to hire hands from among the local Li minority people. They brought the rotting logs on which the mushrooms were growing to Haikou.

Huang read books on mushrooms and brought samples of scientifically identified mushrooms to the Chinese herbal medicine departments of various hospitals and universities, paying for tests on toxicity, medicinal properties and active ingredients. He found various rei­shi mushrooms with health-promoting effects.

Within three years, the wild mushrooms of Mt. Wu­zhi had virtually been picked clean by ­Huang, and he brought his search for wild mushrooms to many mountain forests on the mainland.

In 2001 Huang established the Hai­nan Wan­nian­xun Wild Lucid Ganoderma Research Institute Company in Hai­kou, becoming one of a small number of Taiwan firms with an actual shop front in the city. Currently, there are over 50 rei­shi samples in his office, some of them several hundred years old.

Wan­nian­xun has a factory in Bei­jing that uses nanotechnology to extract active components from mushrooms. The rei­shi mushroom capsules that it produces have been officially designated as gifts for central government officials on the mainland.

Huang He­ping explains that sales channels in the mainland are not well developed, and there is insufficient trust between people. Consequently, Wan­nian­xun’s products aren’t found in other stores. They can only be purchased in the company’s own stores in Hai­kou and ­Sanya.

“In one year we produce 20–30,000 boxes of capsules,” explains Huang. “Each box sells for RMB680.” He estimates yearly business at over RMB13 million (about NT$65 million). And that doesn’t include revenue from rei­shi tea and other products.

With the business growing more stable, he has been gradually turning over day-to-day operations to the next generation. Apart from sharing his health secrets on television, he can be found roaming around his stores in Hai­kou and ­Sanya, freely dispensing advice on health.

Huang’s youngest daughter ­Huang ­Ziqi, who moved to Hai­nan when she was just eight years old, is now studying Chinese medicine at Hai­nan Medical College. She notes that as cities in Hai­nan such as Hai­kou and ­Sanya have become more developed in recent years, people in their 20s and 30s have become more concerned about their health.

“It used to be that most people would eat vitamins to protect their health, but in the last two years they’ve become clearly more receptive to the benefits of Chinese medicine.”

Ultimately, not every kind of mushroom can be safely ingested. Some are toxic. ­Huang Ziqi says that customers often come in with questions about rei­shi mushrooms they bought elsewhere. Or they ask experts at the store to provide herbal recipes. Summing up, ­Huang says, “Taking good care of your health is no longer the exclusive province of the elderly.”

“Only with ‘special varieties’ can you gain a stable foothold in the market,” says ­Huang He­ping, deliberately comparing his unique experiences in the rei­shi business with the experiences of the Taiwanese who met success in Hai­nan introducing high-end fruit varieties. It’s an apt comparison.