AI is giving coffee makers a new way to learn what each drinker actually likes.
In a report on the next phase of Chinese smart-hardware companies going global, 21st Century Business Herald follows Mizheng Technology founder Zhang Xiangcheng and the opportunity he sees in coffee. Eight years ago, while researching the coffee-machine category, Zhang believed the market would be difficult to enter: established European and American brands had deep cultural and brand advantages, while competing primarily on price offered little path forward.
The report says Zhang founded Mizheng Technology in 2020, with Xinghang Capital—an incubator established with support from XPeng—among its early backers. Its coffee brand, PURA Coffee, approached the category from a different question: could a machine remember a person’s taste rather than simply deliver a fixed recipe?
A taste profile that can learn
According to the report, PURA’s Taste DNA model maps six dimensions of a cup: floral and fruity notes, acidity, sweetness, body, bitterness, and finish. The system is designed to learn from a user’s choices and ratings over time, then adjust brewing temperature, pressure, and time to better match that person’s preferences.
That idea also changes the role of the machine. Instead of a brand deciding what everyone should drink, the machine can respond to how a person’s preferences vary by moment and context. Zhang is quoted describing AI’s potential to understand when someone wants a coffee and what kind of coffee fits that moment.
Small hardware, long-term value
The report also describes Mizheng’s effort to compress system engineering into a very small form factor and says the company was applying for a Guinness World Records designation related to the world’s smallest micro espresso machine. The emphasis is not a pump headline or a parameter race; it is the challenge of fitting stable, repeatable coffee-making capability into a compact product.
For Zhang, the larger opportunity is trust. The report attributes to him the view that a brand earns trust not through its country of origin, but by repeatedly delivering value that consumers can feel. For Chinese brands entering overseas markets, he argues, the goal is not merely to sell units. A meaningful experience difference can help a brand move beyond a race to the bottom and build pricing power.
This perspective sits within a broader industry shift described by 21st Century Business Herald: Chinese hardware companies are moving from supply-chain efficiency and fast iteration toward products that identify unmet needs and create their own value. PURA Coffee’s work on taste personalization is presented as one example of that transition.
This is an English adaptation of coverage originally published in Chinese. Quotes are translated from the source.