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Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:01 am
by grzegorz
Bao wrote:
gzregorz wrote:I like my beer, like my coffee, black.


Ditto that. But I am even more of a Stout Man.

I drink about 5 to 8 cups of coffee a normal work day. But if I brew coffee my self I only use Espresso beans.

Love red wine as well.

Favorite Whiskey is Auchentoshan

My very favourite Western thing to drink though is Drambuie.

Sake is great, but I do prefer Korean brands before Japanese.

China has so much great things to drink. I enjoy much of their stuff, from sweet plum wine to Xifengjiu and Luzhou Laojiao.


Sounds like we have a lot of the same tastes in drinks. I never considered using expresso beans to brew coffee. Soundd great!

I also love sake. Goes down like water. I have seen a couple of sake bars and I will have to be sure to stop in one day since normally I just get the house sake.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:14 am
by Bao
grzegorz wrote: Sounds like we have a lot of the same tastes in drinks. I never considered using expresso beans to brew coffee. Soundd great!


I never buy ground coffee anymore, can’t handle it very well anymore, only do from Espresso roasted beans that I grind myself. Can hardly drink prepared ground coffee nowadays. What I do has a result similar to Americano, but I brew it like European style coffe. Espresso sounds much stronger, but in fact, grinding Espresso beans is much more easy and friendly for your stomach. You get the Coffeine and the kick, but save your health better. I believe that the grounde coffee brands mix in other things as well, flavoring and other shit, so the coffee is not as clean as grinding beans by yourself.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:50 am
by Trick
I like coffe very much and have been drinking it forever. But I don’t know what “espresso roasted beans” are , I thought beans for espresso was defined on how finely grounded they are ? I never drink espresso except for those times the local cafe has not prepared beans for the coffee brewer, then they offer an americano but to get anythin near the real coffe taste a cup of brewed coffee gives it need at least three espresso shots……Regular brewed coffee is the thing for me, but it seem I’m the only one that order that at any coffee bar here in China

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:22 am
by grzegorz
My favorite is dark roasted brewed coffee served cold.

I love stouts too. Basically I prefer the dark beers although in some countries like Austria it didn't matter what the beer looked like it was all made to perfection and more than anyone could ask for.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:46 am
by roger hao
Trick -

Sounds like you could back me up when I tell USA peeps that
Starbucks in China is not about coffee

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 1:15 pm
by Bao
Trick wrote:I like coffe very much and have been drinking it forever. But I don’t know what “espresso roasted beans” are , I thought beans for espresso was defined on how finely grounded they are ? I never drink espresso except for those times the local cafe has not prepared beans for the coffee brewer, then they offer an americano but to get anythin near the real coffe taste a cup of brewed coffee gives it need at least three espresso shots……Regular brewed coffee is the thing for me, but it seem I’m the only one that order that at any coffee bar here in China


Espresso roast is done longer and with more heat than regular roasting. A bit of precision is needed as well. Regular roast is fine though the taste will be more bland. With Espresso beans, you can use less ground but still get good flavor.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:06 pm
by grzegorz
roger hao wrote:Trick -

Sounds like you could back me up when I tell USA peeps that
Starbucks in China is not about coffee


True that!

Starbucks definitely managed to brand itself as something special in China. Although I dipped in on occassion to get some caffeine I have never been a big fan. In SF there were a lot of better smaller cafes which lost the war against Starbucks.

I was happy to see that in Shanghai better cafes were popping up when I left.

I just tried Phil's Coffee recently. At $5 I won't be there often but when you got extra money in your pocker I don't think anyone would be disappointed. I take coffee black so you can't fool me with milk, sugar and whip cream.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:32 pm
by everything
I used to find Starbucks coffee tasted a little over roasted. Then they came out with "blonde" roast, which seemed better to me.

But then after that, they added "coconut milk" as an alternative, which kind of got me hooked on the lattes. I don't like soy or almond milk and quit dairy. So Starbucks kinda has my "loyalty" (preference, I guess?) for now.

A long, long time ago, I had a job making espresso, but I didn't really learn any special coffee knowledge from doing that. It was before Starbucks became huge.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:08 pm
by grzegorz
To be fair once I left "real China" for Hong Kong and found a Starbucks and it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

I admit that mostly I hold a grudge because SF used to have some high quality small chains that have since disappeared due to the Starbucks empire but then again that's business

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:38 pm
by everything
yeah I don't like not supporting mom and pop on the one hand, but otoh, mom and pop don't quite get my "need" unfortunately. and i'm not some kind of coffee snob, so that won't work for me as a consumer.

I don't know. I don't like this dynamic overall.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:35 pm
by grzegorz
These were a little more than mom and pop stores. Probably comparable more to Peet's.

Definitely try Phil's. I only tried one coffee of theirs and it was excellent and the line was out of the door.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 6:00 am
by Trick
roger hao wrote:Trick -

Sounds like you could back me up when I tell USA peeps that
Starbucks in China is not about coffee

Yes most costumers at Starbucks here mainly order some of all the kinds of “Tivoli” beverages from the menu, the tastebuds have to work really hard detect anything coffe flavor in those. As ‘everything’ say sometimes with the regular coffees at SB the beans seemingly have been tar-roasted(over roasted). About from 2010 there began to pop up more independent coffe bars here in China, at least it was so in Dalian but Starbucks have been keeping the no:1 position, and they always manage to get the best locations.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:10 am
by everything
Cool I'll check out Phil's (is it Philz) when I can. Looks like all west coast + DC, so may take a while.

Starbucks in Asia is a really interesting phenomenon. Have only been to two in Taiwan. Menu was slightly different. Asians and any non-Western European DNA people should probably not have dairy, but I don't think those Starbucks had the massive non-dairy choices like here in the USA. On the real estate topic, one of the "core competencies" of Starbucks (much like McDonald's) is real estate location and deals. Starbucks often has two locations catty corner from each other to "corner" that location. That is another tactic and skill that makes it way harder for mom and pop to compete. There was a study a while ago that said if your house is within 5 miles of a new Starbucks, it's correlated with better than average real estate appreciation. Whether this is causal from Starbucks, or Starbucks is following the affluence, or both are happening, is hard to say. I'd bet the same but more so is true of Whole Foods locations (in the USA).

I've gone to a couple interesting non-profit-ish or independent coffee shops lately. One is in the lobby of a YMCA. Another is in the lobby of a church. No coconut milk latte, though.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:16 am
by roger hao
Greg said his Fav is dark roasted brewed cold coffee and Everything is talking
about coconut milk in coffee.
My number one is Starbucks cold brewed Iced coffee - light sweetener -one pump -
and a splash of coconut milk.
The coconut milk takes the acid off of the otherwise strong cold brew.
Gonna stop and get one on the way to office rt now.

Re: How about drinks

PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:25 am
by everything
haha, lol, I have tried cold brewed at home. Super smooth. Less acidic, actually, than hot brewed. A little saturated fat to top it off. Sounds perfect. I haven't tried that Starbucks drink. I need to buy some Starbucks stock. Downturn? What downturn?:

https://www.google.com/search?q=starbuc ... e&ie=UTF-8