Coffee shops have had a footing in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore for decades, and now it’s Shanghai’s turn, with the opening of Starbucks Reserve Roastery, the largest Starbucks in the world, and the brand’s most ambitious project yet.
Three years ago Starbucks opened the first Reserve Roastery in its home base of Seattle. It’s chosen Shanghai for its second, delivering a multi-sensory java experience to a country that’s presently seeing a Starbucks open every 15 hours.
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New arrivals are welcomed to the 2,700sqm Starbucks Reserve Roastery Shanghai by a two-story copper cask decorated in 1,000 traditional Chinese chops – but this place is more than just good looks; there are three coffee bars offering multiple brewing methods, as well as one tea bar; Italian cuisine at Princi restaurant, and an augmented reality guiding experience that uses smartphones to give additional detail on the coffee experience.
But behind the attractions there’s serious coffee work at hand; for the first time ever, unique, small-lot reserve coffee, which Starbucks sources from more than 30 countries around the world, including coffee from China’s Yunnan Province, will be roasted in China by eight highly-trained Chinese coffee roasters.
Customers can watch the green beans as they are roasted, then sent through copper “symphony” pipes (named because of the musical sound the beans make as they travel through them) directly to silos at the coffee bars.
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The Yunnan Reserve coffee, grown in Pu’er in Yunnan Province, is roasted and available exclusively at the Roastery in Shanghai. It’s the culmination of Starbucks ongoing commitment to Chinese growers; since 2012, agronomists at the China Starbucks Farmer Support Center have worked closely with farmers and the government to provide resources and expertise to improve quality and promote sustainable coffee-growing practices.
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