When you walk into a Starbucks store, usually, its cosy, with ambient background music, or sometimes its just packed to the brim and you often have to take your coffee to-go, but have you ever entered a Starbucks store and felt lost? Well, if you are travelling to Shanghai, China anytime soon, you might want to check out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery.
It is dubbed the most immersive coffee wonderland for coffee enthusiast, and at 30,000 sq feet, one can hardly disagree. From the skies, this multi-million dollar store looks like a giant coffee bean and once you get behind its thick wooden doors, visitors will be given an exploration guide, which serves as a map to traverse the many sections of this huge roastery.
The copper casks, that holds four ton of coffee beans
There are two floors of theatrical and interactive entertainment and a two-story, four-ton cask where the coffee beans are stored, and over 1,000 traditional Chinese “chops” or stamps that tell the story of Starbucks, all while accompanied by the sounds of Luciano Pavarotti”s “Nessun Dorma”. The ceiling is covered by 10,000 handmade tiles made from the American walnut all designed to be hexagonal.
One of the more curious architectural features are the symphony pipes, which are the long pipes which are coils that criss-cross the ceiling. These pipes carry the beans from the copper cask to the main bar. Coffee-wise, there are some unique flavours that you can only find here, such as the butterscotch latte, or the Undertow, which is an espresso suspended above a chilled vanilla bean breve. Visitors can also try out the pairing bar, which lets you learn which coffee goes well with which food.
Finally, the Shanghai Starbucks Roastery doesn’t just do coffee and tea but they are also selling beer and wine, with craft beer made from Kenya, Columbia, and Guatemala coffees.
Credits: CNN Travel