On August 8, Dr.coffee and Coffee Salon successfully concluded the first stop of the Coffee Pop-Up tour in Guangzhou.

The event welcomed 2026 WCIGS World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Andy Philein (Liu Zhanhong). Across eight rounds of an Omakase-style experience, participants enjoyed efficient, consistent coffee preparation without complex manual steps and experienced Castle's professional performance firsthand.

Three Drinks Reveal Castle's Core Strengths

Coffee Salon and Andy jointly created three progressively layered signature beverages, moving from a foundational black coffee to a creative specialty drink and finally a competition-level coffee-and-spirits creation. Each drink was designed to match Castle's intelligent production capabilities, showcasing the versatility of fully automatic equipment in specialty coffee environments.

01 Black Coffee | One-Touch Preparation with Efficient, Stable Extraction

As the opening foundation of the experience, black coffee placed particular emphasis on extraction consistency. The selected Ethiopian single-origin beans, customized by world champion Liu Taiyang, offered berry, black-tea and floral notes with a clean, refreshing profile. Before the event, the barista dialed in Castle's extraction parameters. With one-touch preparation, the machine delivered balanced, consistent flavor and a rich, full crema, comfortably meeting the quality standard for the first specialty-coffee course.

02 Liquid Toast | Continuous Extraction for Both Freshness and Efficiency

The second signature drink, “Liquid Toast,” offered a rich and layered profile. It combined ice-distilled milk with a butter-milk base, specially prepared caramelized coconut sugar and a pressurized infusion technique, topped with caramel-flavored coffee foam for a smooth, creamy texture and strong character. The entire preparation relied on Castle's continuous-extraction capability, allowing batch pre-extraction and centralized mise en place without repeatedly adjusting machine parameters. This made it well suited to a multi-round pop-up format while balancing quality and efficiency.

03 Echoes of the Pale Blue Dot | Human-Machine Collaboration for a Specialty Experience

The final creation, “Echoes of the Pale Blue Dot,” is one of Andy's award-winning world-competition beverages and centers on the creative combination of coffee and spirits, with demanding requirements for service rhythm. During the live presentation of this competition-level drink, Castle handled coffee extraction using preset parameters, while Andy focused more attention on spirit pairing, flavor presentation and interaction with participants. Machine and creator each contributed their strengths, allowing standardized coffee preparation to connect naturally with personalized creative expression.

One Stop Complete — More Highlights Ahead

With Andy's professional co-creation and hands-on expertise, Castle simplified the workflow for specialty signature drinks through stable extraction and intelligent production. With only two people working the entire event, the team efficiently served 50 participants and produced a total of 150 consistent beverages, demonstrating how well fully automatic equipment can adapt to specialty coffee applications.

The Guangzhou stop has concluded successfully, but the Coffee Pop-Up tour continues. In the future, we will bring the experience to more cities, introduce champion-designed menus and explore new ways to use intelligent equipment to empower specialty coffee and create more surprising flavor experiences.