evin McCabe is so excited about a new type of coffee he is selling in China that he hands me a packet to take home to try. The only problem is that I do not have an espresso machine. “Take one with you,” he says, grabbing a shiny new model from his company’s Leeds office lobby.
I explain the Financial Times’ strict rules on gifts and the machine is returned. But the episode goes some way to illustrating the Sheffield-born entrepreneur’s success around the world: charm, persistence and an impulsive drive to exploit the next opportunity.
Mr McCabe, 68, was one of the first British property developers in China. He travels there frequently and enthuses about his upmarket Espuma coffee house chain developed with the Novell family from Barcelona.