I don’t have much time for a blog post today, but I am now sitting in a coffee shop in Zhongshan Park.  I am waiting for JJ to finish her English Class, which should end in about 15 minutes, just in time for us to catch the last subway back home.  For some reason, it is fucking freezing inside this Coffee Bean place (’ta ma de leng!’).  I don’t particularly know why its so cold in this place.  Common sense would lead you to believe that coffee shops, especially those that charge $3+ per drink in a country that charges < $3 per meal would at least have a decent heater.   But then again, common sense is difficult to find in China sometimes.

So I ordered the Americano, which I guess is just normal coffee.  It tastes like normal coffee.  I don’t know why its called an Americano.  I was under the impression that an Americano was some kind of special espresso / hot boiling water mixture.  I remember one of the VCEL guys, Adam Doupe, explaining this to me once in Vegas (his girlfriend worked at Starbucks.  Why I remember this, don’t ask).  Anyway, its not bad, but of course it would be a lot better if the stupid heater worked and the drink did not get cold before I was able to casually finish this cup of coffee.

It is always funny to people watch in these kinds of places.  The idea of a coffee shop is just completely different in China.  Even the mindset about what to do and why its worth it to spend so much money is completely different.  When I first came to China and I saw all of these Starbucks places and others like Starbucks, I though ‘Why would anyone in their right mind go to a place that charges this much for a damn cup of coffee?’  I mean, seriously.  Let’s take tonight for example.  I went to dinner before JJ’s class with JJ and her classmate.  I’ll admit, we went to an inexpensive place, but give me some credit, we are eating in a pretty fancy mall and the same place in a less downtown area would have been much less.  Ok, so the dinner was 33 RMB which translates to roughly $4.5.  Now that is for all three of us.  4.5 bucks for 3 friggin people!  Ok so after that, I have to wait for JJ’s class to finish, so I head over to the Coffee Bean, order an ‘Americano’, and pay 26 RMB, which is like $3.5.  Ok so for about the price of 2 dinners, I ordered this cup of coffee.

So the logic is kind of skewed I know.  But actually, getting back to my original point, these kinds of coffee places are not about the coffee.  Chinese people don’t like coffee.  In fact, the taste of coffee is generally to most people, even common occupants of coffee shops.  I mentioned though, these places are everywhere, just as much prevalent as in the U.S.  Instead, they see these places as a means to socialize, a shop with a lovely environment, free internet, warm and cozy atmosphere (usually warm, god dammit!) and as an added benefit, some kind of specialty coffee drink.  They don’t order what is essentially a large cup of black coffee.  In fact, I get surprised looks when they take my order and find out that is all I want.

So I guess when you think about it, there are not really places in China, other than these kind of nice warm coffee houses, where you can sit down, relax, talk to your friends, use the Internet, sit in nice chairs and have a good time.  I think, in general, at least Americans appreciate the coffee aspect of the coffee shop a lot more than the environment where they drink the coffee.  You see Americans getting a coffee to go (da bao) from Starbucks all the time whereas that would be kind of unheard of in China because its just too damn expensive (tai gui le!).

Zai jian!