Magpie Coffee Brings Fruit-Flavored Espresso to Richmond

Magpie Coffee, which opened recently inside Aberdeen Square's hidden second-floor hallway (facing the SkyTrain station), is doing something quietly audacious: reframing what coffee can taste like.

Co-owners Cindy Li and Ming Ming Chang, who moved from Toronto to BC, set out to bring fruit-flavored coffee to the West Coast. Their menu pivots away from the bitter-espresso-and-oat-milk template that's dominated specialty coffee for the past decade. Instead: orange americano, pineapple americano, green grape Jasmine americano. There's also a cherry blossom latte, black sesame latte, and ube latte—plus a full matcha and carbonated tea program for non-coffee drinkers.

The vibe is deliberately experimental. "We wanted to see if those on the West Coast would like this kind of coffee, especially when people like to try different things," Li said. The fruit and floral additions come as syrups or whole fruit blended in, designed to complement rather than mask the base espresso.

Magpie sources beans from a local Richmond roaster, grounding the concept in neighborhood rooting even as the flavor palette feels imported. The café also runs a one-liter drink option for just $3 more—a marketing play that morphed into cult appeal. Morning commuters now order liters to nurse through the workday. "We have customers ordering the one-litre cup in the morning and they say they drink it for the whole day," Li said. "We have four shots in it and it's really strong." The margin is thin (Li admits they don't earn much profit per liter), but the play works—it's memorable, shareable, and it gets people talking.

The name references the magpie, a bird symbolizing luck and good news in Chinese culture. Café as cultural messenger, essentially.

Hours: 10 a.m.–6 p.m. daily. Unit 2355, 4000 No. 3 Road, Richmond. Worth a SkyTrain detour if you're curious about where coffee flavors are heading.