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Q: Is Starbucks pissing you off in China?
I would sort of expect to buy fuel at a fuel station.
I would think an old fart like myself could get just a plain black coffee at a starbucks.
For some reason, more than half the time I go in a Starbucks and order the large venti brew of the day, i get the "may O" bullshit response.
Sometimes the manager can speak English and of course he says you can get the Americano, I say yes that's all i ever get, a global corporation gives me one choice for a hot black coffee, whats the point of drinking the same black coffee everytime, you sell different types of coffee but don't serve it.
an americano and brownie is no different than macdonald 's coffee and a pie.
Today I order the Brownie and then the brew of the day at 10 thirty in the morning and get the no, so I say nevermind and leave.
This happens about 10 times a year here.
I guess I should order the high profit pretty drinks and be happy. SCREW THAT. I know customer service in non existent here but I still love the shock of some Chinese guy as a say forget it and put the cash I have out to buy back in my pocket and walk out, they seem puzzled that anyone would do this and not pick something else.
Starbucks is the most over-rated, over-priced coffee you can buy in China. It's usually watery, tasteless, crap. McDonald's, KFC, and 7-11 have vastly superior coffee at the fraction of what Starbucks sells ... in fact I can buy an entire dinner at local family-run Chinese restos for less than the cost of a SB coffee. I was also shopping to replace my broken Bodum (aka French Press) and was flaberbasted they were asking 370RMB for one. I previously bought them at Aeon supermarket for 50RMB! What a bad joke SB has become.
If the thingy with the trade war continues, soon you'll change the name to ...
'Bar-stuck-s' in China.
You misspelled 'may OU' ...
I go to Starbuck's almost every day (there are at least eight of them within walking distance of me) and always order the same thing - green tea. Interestingly, all the Chinese I see there drink coffee or some derivation of it, but I never see them drink tea. I guess there's some irony there, but I'm too tired to think about it.
WangNan2020:
I'm Chiense, and yes I don't order tea-related stuff in SB. Maybe it's a bit like, an Italian won't go into Papa Johns in Italy and order pizza, s/he probably looks for sth. American, sth. exotic, but never pizza!
I pretty much never eat McDonalds, the only times I've set foot in one in about the last fifteen years or so have been in China, late at night after a few too many beers and looking for a snack. Actually, maybe once or twice when I wanted a coffee...
And more often than not if you ask for anything with beef in it you'd get told meiyou, they only had fishburgers or maybe something with chicken in it.
WTF, when you can't get a hamburger at McD's the world has gotten strange.
ambivalentmace:
yes, this has happen too me a few times years ago, but not lately.
Starbucks used to let you get 2 for 1 on the sandwiches left over after 8 thirty pm, but only about half the time do they let me do it, seems the manager thinks the foreigner should not get a chinese discount, so with my keto diet, i had to give up sandwiches anyway. I do miss a good tuna sandwich.
At the risk of sounding like an anti-corporate leftie, I hate what Starbucks has done to China and am not a big fan of it in general. Their coffee is crap, decor uninspiring, customers a collection of yammering businessmen and peasants who want to show how much money they have. When I first got here in 2011, there was like one SB in the whole city. There were lots of locally owned cafes, some crap (chains like Dio), some really good with their own character and atmosphere. Good places to hang out with friends or a date, or to just take a breather from the chaos of the city. Then SB started to take over and bit by bit the local places died out. There's still a few left so I give them my money and avoid SB as much as possible. Vote with your wallet. Rant over.
ambivalentmace:
yes, the local places are gone here also, I used to get blue mountain, vietnam coffee, ethiopia, italian and others at local shops that disappeared.
If you're looking for different varieties of black coffee in China, good luck.
I don't hate or love Starbucks. One thing to me is a general disdain of corporations. The Starbucks in China is exactly the same as the one in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, except the servers are all Chinese. That's it. Starbucks has basically killed the local, independent coffee bars. Starbucks are cookie cutter, no style, no imagination, just the same bullshit all over the Earth.
I do think their coffee is way too expensive for what it is. I am not a regular coffee drinker (I dont and have never needed coffee to wake up in the morning) but I like it every once in a while. I like regular black coffee with cream/milk and sugar. The last time I was charged 30 RMB for a tall cup. no refills.
I dont know about now, but I had a friend who was a coffee addict and we would go to McDonalds or KFC and get a coffee for like 3 RMB and have unlimited refills. Coffee was fine, freshly made and we can have all we wanted at one sitting. I think McDonalds in America, while more expensive (like a dollar) you can also have refills. Coffee is cheap.
I just think also there is a pretentiousness of people who go to Starbucks and want some goofy ass "Triple latte, double mocha, whipped with shaved chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top that takes the barista fifteen fking minutes to make, much like going to a bar and have to wait for the bartender to make someone some ridiculous mixed drink with four kinds of alcohol and set on fire. Just have a beer, a glass of wine or a shot of liquor. Go to Starbucks and get a coffee. Not hard.
One good thing I will say about Starfucks in China is that Starbucks sells cheesecake. Its too expensive (like 30 RMB for a sliver) but Starbucks does sell this.
Like I said, dont like or hate Starbucks, it just doesnt have what I want.
Springly:
I think that Starbucks is overpriced here in the US. My daughter found a place where she lives that roasts their own coffee beans. She states that it tastes much better than Starbucks and much less than 1/2 the price. I think she found something good. I cannot drink coffee. I have had the coffee drinks on occasion. They are too expensive for a daily habit to start.
I can't help laughing reading your post. I'm with you, mate. That variety of black coffee, is just beyond us. We're as good as differentiating coffee with milk from coffee without milk LOL!
No demand, no supply.
I imagine myself go to Europe and look for some authentic Chinese dish I'll probably be equally pissed!
I do like the occasional Starbucks. No problems here, but i'm not really knowledgable about coffee and it's it's difficult to get a Flat White wrong
I live in America and I can honestly say that Starbucks is over-rated. The only thing I get there is a Green Tea frappe (which is an insult to green tea, since all it is is some sort of green smoothie with melon extract in it. Does it even have tea in it? Does anyone know?
What I have discovered is that the Starphucks in Hangzhou-Xiaoshan Has a restroom, but it is always out of service. If I'm going to be overcharged for mediocre coffee, I sure as hell want a place to piss it out later!
sorrel:
like any franchise there would be local differences but these would be checked on regularly to ensure that certain minimum standards were being adhered to.
However, I am sure that Starbucks head office would not be too impressed with the local version (if it is even a legal franchise in the first place !)
and yes, the drinks any Starbucks serves is nothing more than pi** water.
It's so easy to be critical and negative about something, from my perspective I can say that at least Starbucks has some standards. There's this one Starbucks in the suburbs of Wuhan (JiangXia), that was the only shop in the whole mall that would use aircondioning in winter, whereas the rest of the mall was freezing cold, it was really nice to have at least one place where you can warm up your a.. a bit.
Starbucks is the most over-rated, over-priced coffee you can buy in China. It's usually watery, tasteless, crap. McDonald's, KFC, and 7-11 have vastly superior coffee at the fraction of what Starbucks sells ... in fact I can buy an entire dinner at local family-run Chinese restos for less than the cost of a SB coffee. I was also shopping to replace my broken Bodum (aka French Press) and was flaberbasted they were asking 370RMB for one. I previously bought them at Aeon supermarket for 50RMB! What a bad joke SB has become.
I enjoy Starbucks coffee from the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and even China. But I stopped drinking Starbucks when I discovered that the quality of their cups from their supplier in China was not as high as I had hoped, as was the service they provided. It reminds me that a good face is not always as good as we think or look into.The cups' materials (PET Plastic) are being processed with silicon in rusty water. I also sent a video to Starbucks customer service about this problem.