Shanghai Starbucks Roastery

Earlier in April, I spent a week in Shanghai to see a friend and found myself in front of this giant Starbucks Reserve.

It was around 4pm in the afternoon, after walking around the whole afternoon trying to explore the city, my feet ached. Seeing this huge circular building was a sign that I should take a break. Helas, when I pushed through the door, the whole place was filled with fragrant coffee and lots and lots of people, which I kinda forgot that I was in China.

It’s a freaking museum

I do enjoy my lattes in Starbucks when the barista serves perfectly balanced latte. Though sometimes it’s 50:50 chance to get it right. I’m no coffee connoisseur, but I’d like to tell myself that I do know what a good coffee taste like. Stepping into the roastery, firstly, you’d be flooded by people. I think a good 40% are tourists. All curiously wiping their phones out to video the process of how Starbucks “roast” their beans before sending them down to their respective columns.

Yup— everything seems to be partly connected to the different baristas counters. Each time a new batch of beans were sent, everyone would clap. And on the second floor, you’d be able to peek at how they pack their beans before hitting the shelves for sale. It was really an eye-opener. There were a couple of different barista counters— each classified by the origins of their beans and there’s also a Teavana counter. Some of them serves different viennoseries to pizza counters.

But unfortunately for me, I couldn’t find a spot to rest my feet and enjoy a good cup of latte. It was a little complicated to be there alone. Because first, you need someone to guard the seats, second someone else to go to the counter to order drinks.
I was about to give up when I went back down to the ground floor and found empty seats at the counter!

Starbucks reserve *

Lucky me, I found a spot on the counter table where I was able to watch the baristas at work. They seem to have way too many baristas, but at the same time, the amount of people there was plainly crazy despite the fact that I was told that it wasn’t the peak period yet.

Starbucks reserve has a completely different menu, at different counters too if I’m not wrong. They have all sorts of coffee, some with alcohol too. I settled with a Butterscotch latte + a nutella-stuffed Cornetti— I was instantly sold. I was thinking that butterscotch would taste a little weird, but it turns out really interesting albeit it was a little too sweet to my liking. It was a nice tea-break. And as I was waiting for my friend to knock off from work, I just brought out my journal and started sketching.

bit by bit—

playing with inks

I haven’t been sketching in public ever since I left school now that I thought about it.

Somehow it lights up the dime fire in me. I’m fully back onto #theartofanyhow if you’ve noticed from my Instagram.

So stay tuned for more!