◢ ABOUT @ONCE · EST. 2020 · SHANGHAI ◣
The story behind
the tube.
Founded in Shanghai, 2020. A quiet revolt against compromise — bottle, pouch, or sachet, every existing concentrate forced a trade-off. @once chose none. Nitrogen-locked freshness, whole-leaf extraction, Q-Grader curation. A flask of espresso the size of a fountain pen, ready a year from now.
★ ORIGIN ★
Concentrate, perfected.
"Concentrate" had always been a synonym for "less than fresh." The category lived on shortcuts — powders, synthetics, sugar. @once started from a single question: what if you could keep a barista shot exactly as it left the espresso machine, for a year, in your bag?
The answer was simple in chemistry, hard in engineering. Strip the oxygen from the tube, fill it with food-grade nitrogen, seal it. With no oxygen to fuel oxidation, the chemistry of aging stops. A pen-sized tube, room-temperature, 365 days. No fridge. No preservative.
★ HOW M.A.P. WORKS ★
M.A.P. — modified
atmosphere preservation.
Three steps, one patent, every tube.
STEP 01
STRIP.
Vacuum draws every molecule of oxygen out of the empty tube before any liquid enters.
STEP 02
FILL.
Food-grade nitrogen — >99.5% pure — flows in, displacing residual air to below 0.8% by volume.
STEP 03
SEAL.
The micro-tube is heat-sealed under nitrogen. Inside, the concentrate now sits in zero-oxygen suspension.
★ CREDENTIALS ★
The receipts.
★ PATENT
CN 201921386707.5
Modified Atmosphere Preservation — granted 2020. Replaces oxygen with food-grade nitrogen inside every micro-tube.
★ QUALITY
Q-Grader certified
Quality control overseen by a Q-Grader (Coffee Quality Institute, CQI). 20+ year factory manager leads operations.
★ PARTNERS
Top-tier upstream sourcing
Deep customised partnerships with single-origin coffee farms in Colombia, Yunnan, Ethiopia. Spirits sourced for cocktail line.
★ CHANNEL
14,000+ retail · 17 markets
Tmall, JD, Pinduoduo, Douyin, FamilyMart, Lawson, 7-Eleven, KKV, Hema, Watsons in China. Target in the US.
★ MILESTONES ★
7 chapters,
one tube.
2019
Patent filed in Shanghai — Modified Atmosphere Preservation, CN 201921386707.5.
2020
JIYIN founded. Angel investment from Shanghai Zhonglin Capital.
2021
First espresso micro-tube launches. 300% YoY growth.
2022
No.1 on Douyin best-selling coffee liquid list. Series investment from Dongjin Food Industry.
2024
Crossed 10,000 retail locations in China — including 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, Lawson, Olé.
2025
"Card coffee" pocket-tube series launches. Reaches 17 overseas markets.
2026
Target US shelf entry. 14,000+ retail locations worldwide. Cocktail + Tea lines expand.
★ RETURN @ONCE PROGRAM ★
Empty tubes come home,
leave as mini coffee machines.
Drop your empty @once tubes back through any participating stockist. We melt them down and 3D-print a tiny coffee-machine figurine — yours to keep, redeem for more product, or trade with fellow @once heads.
The first peripheral series is a 1:18 scale espresso-machine figurine, each made entirely from the returned tubes. Pilot live in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Seoul. Rollout to all 17 markets in 2026.
Get details · hello@drinkatonce.com →★ MINI MACHINE FIGURINE
COLLECT
SHRED & MELT
3D PRINT
★ TALK TO @ONCE ★