Photo: Rama

If you have “taste buds” or don’t “need mass amounts of caffeine in order to function” then you won’t have much use for the Nescafe I was talking about last week. Even the armies of girls clad in knee-high white boots and jaunty red berets, bearing trays covered with cups of Nescafe shouting details of Nescafe promotions over boom mics to the accompaniment of Laurie Anderson’s “Nescafe Open Up” looped till eternity won’t win you over.

Starbucks sells coffee, either whole bean or they’ll grind it for you, but it starts around 80 kuai per bag. If you’re making a western salary or just sip the occasional cup, shelling out 100 kuai for a Sumatran roast is no big deal; but if you’ll go through that bag in a week, feeding the monkey starts to become expensive.

Luckily, Yunnan coffee is a fine alternative. Though some consider the flavor inferior to the Starbucks line of coffees I think it taste great (although, admittedly, I tend to cook the flavor out of all my coffee. In fact, even the ‘Bucks has started using Yunnan coffee in their stores.There are several different kinds of Yunnan coffee, available at Jenny Lou’s in Beijing and other western supermarkets around China, and a bag will only run you 30 kuai, maybe even a little less. It’s a good price and it’s refreshing (for me at least) to drink something with both excellent flavor and a non-harmful acidity level.

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Related Links
Starbucks pushes China sales with local brew
Nescafe & Being Addicted to Caffeine in China
Salvador's Coffee House
My Favorite Places in Yunnan

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