Rose Lin Zamoa (Photo by Christian O'Brien)

China's African community has blossomed from a few international students to a burgeoning community of traders and entrepreneurs in the last decade. Whilst focus has mainly been on the traders who busily ship goods between the Middle Kingdom and the continent, the less explored demographic of African restaurateurs have piqued the taste buds of Chinese diners.

Rose Lin Zamoa is one such entrepreneur who has gone from a studious curiosity of the Chinese language to being the owner of several successful businesses in the Chinese capital.

China on my mind

Zamoa, 31, was born in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana, West Africa, and moved to London with her family at age 14. Always having a passion for cooking, she began turning her passion into a profession after training for two and a half years at cooking school in East London's Barking College.

"Whilst I was there, I got involved with an enrichment program, where you could basically learn a language. I was curious about Chinese characters way before I had heard about that program, and Chinese was on there so I thought 'let's have a try.' I went to the class and I was the only one that turned up. My teacher was an English lady, and I was like, 'if she can learn Chinese, then so can I.' It gave me encouragement," said Zamoa.

In April 2007, she decided to eye the opportunities that China could offer by visiting the nation. In Guangzhou, she touched base with the thriving African community there who advised her to perfect her Chinese by visiting Beijing. In September that year, she did just that and took a Chinese language course at the Beijing International Studies University (formerly known as Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute). Excelling at the course, she was awarded a one-year scholarship to further her language studies.

Packed with exotic spices brought from home, Zamoa began cooking Afro-Caribbean dishes for her classmates. With her jerk chicken dishes proving popular, she jokingly informed her friends that if they wanted more, they would have to pay.

Elegant dining (Photo by Christian O'Brien)

Talking business

Spurred on by encouragement from her growing clientele, Zamoa began seeing a market for her cooking. "There were a few African restaurants in Beijing, but none combined it with Caribbean food. My African food caters more to the Ghanaian and Nigerian communities here in Beijing, and the Caribbean food more to the west Indian community. Combining the two for Chinese clients has been popular," said Zamoa.

Zamoa began cooking early each morning to prepare a few dishes to deliver them to clients in her university. As her workload started to increase, she employed someone to aid her to meet her delivery quotas. After four months, the business expanded to other universities and she began thinking of other ideas to raise funds for her growing enterprise.

Zamoa then invested 50,000 yuan ($7,700) of her savings in opening her own English-language kindergarten. Renting a five-bedroom apartment near her university, she employed several of her classmates as teachers and the class soon grew to 16 students. In addition, she opened her own fitness club. Zamoa was now juggling teaching along with her catering business, studies, and fitness club, which all proved too much for her.

With catering still being top of her agenda, she passed on the management of the school to a friend and took a job at a restaurant in Shijingshan District, west Beijing. Still traveling to her lessons each day, the two-hour commute soon took its toll.

"It was then I decided to open my own private kitchen. Private kitchens are already very popular in Hong Kong. It's a very nice concept as customers can have their own private place to dine," said Zamoa.