Students have been running Sketch Cafe since 2016

Peking University, May 10, 2025: Eight years ago, a group of Peking University students opened a non-profit café in Red Building No. 4 by the Weiming Lake. Today, you can still drop by the café anytime and just... live.

Handing the Library Over to Students



The name Sketch Coffee, or “Cao Tu(草图)”, was proposed by one of the founders, Yuan Zhenyu, combining the words "Ye Cao" (wild grass) and "Tu Shu Guan" (library), bridging the real world with rich knowledge. It is from here that ideas begin to hatch from scratch. 

Before 2017, the college library was not open 24 hours a day. Huang Binling and Yuan Zhenyu boldly proposed to the college that the library be handed over to student management and that a café opened within it. They even confidently claimed that “if the library can be managed by students, its opening time can be extended with no investment.”

A resounding yes and a startup fund of 1,500 yuan. Let's get started!

Cement and bricks were transported from the still under-construction Jiayuan Canteen to the library, where they were laid into a crude bar counter. Leftover wooden flooring from a construction site was also brought in and laid by hand. 



With no prior experience in construction and no knowledge of the proper cement mix, the two founders built a lopsided counter, but it marked the beginning of Sketch Coffee.

More and more members joined in. The initial funds were saved up and invested in a variety of reading salons and sharing sessions, turning the envisioned space for intellectual exchange into reality.



Filling Space with Time

The renovation was not deliberately designed but evolved naturally over time. 

During the construction phase, a senior donated a coffee machine; a barista left his sausage grill at the café upon graduation, and another student contributed an air fryer. 

In the early days, the café had a coffee bean roaster, a gift from three seniors who shared the same dormitory. These young men, passionate about coffee roasting, immediately moved their machine to the café.



On the wall of the spacious discussion area hangs a bicycle, with several paintings beside it and DIY floral lights hanging above. A potted plant or a piece of handicraft would find its way to the café at some point, and behind the bar, dozens of books on coffee and cuisine gradually filled the wooden shelves.

A Small Home Becomes a Big Family



Good beans require skilled baristas. Huang and Yuan attended a training session led by the champion of a national coffee latte art competition. From basic lattes and Americanos to more complex creative beverages, Yuan first learned the skills himself and then taught them to his juniors ¬— fostering a communal learning environment.

Faculty and students come and go, enjoying the coffee machines, bar counters, and warm lighting of the café, building a sense of connection that is both intimate and familiar. 

Wu Chengcheng, a graduate student of the 2022 cohort and the eighth student manager of the café, felt that "it's like playing house, stepping out of the student role to play the part of a barista — it's a serene and delightful experience, like being in a utopia."



Movie screenings, interdisciplinary salons, public lectures, reading clubs... in the aroma of coffee, faculty and students gather around the large discussion tables. 

Members of the online community use coffee to bring people together and use the public space to host intellectual conversations and team-building activities. At its peak, the Construction Society attracted more than 500 members, holding workshops at the café every week. Perhaps all it takes is one push of the door, and this home will welcome a new member.



The "Sketch Style"

"This might be the Sketch style — no specific hobbies required, no unified direction, just a shared passion to make something happen, and it really can be done," Lu Ying describes her experience of attending workshops held at the café since its infancy. She is a graduate student in the College of Architecture and Landscape.

Latte art done by students

In 2021, the once bustling café became empty as the café moved from Red Building No. 4 to the new building of the School of Architecture and Landscape Design outside the East Gate. The new place is spacious and comfortable, with a view full of greenery when you open the café door.

Here, you can order a cup of "Out-of-Control Americano" with one serving of ice plus three servings of espresso. The café added a soy milk machine to make osmanthus millet paste, in response to a request for nighttime healthy drink. It then added a specially offered "Osmanthus Gin" to complement the beautiful autumn weather...Today's is the joint creation of student baristas and customers. 



Warm yellow light spills over the bar counter. The barista is washing the glasses, noticing a customer push the door open. 

"What would you like to drink?" — here, a new story is about to begin.

Written by: Wang Mengjiao
Edited by: Chen Shizhuo
Source: PKU WeChat (Chinese)