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As I was drinking my coffee this morning, I came across this article from the New York Time about how beneficial caffeine can be for athletes. Sure helps me get my feet in my running shoes and out the door in the morning.
Read on and see for yourself: It's Time to Make a Coffee Run
Yesterday was the soft opening of Cookies Cafe, which Turner and I have worked diligently to get off its feet. The cafe was fully functional, selling hot drinks and baked goods.
In the morning I baked while Turner manned the cafe with the new waitresses. The foreign patients at the hospital have showed a strong interest in having good coffee, comfort food, and a relaxing place to sit and sip, so we have done our best to provide this. Some of the owners show an interest in the cafe becoming more of a Chinese restaurant, which would counteract our efforts to make the cafe a unique environment as there are about as many Chinese restaurants as there are people. What the area inside and around the hospital does not have is a quiet, soothing environment with authentic western food and drink. Our job has been to create this, so we feel that it has been a success. Whether or not it is what the owners want is up to them.
We had quite a few customers who said the coffee was great and the food tasty, so it was not a bad first day for a new business. Everyone involved seems excited at this new venture.
Turner and I have embarked on a new adventure, some might say crash course, as restaurateurs. To make a long story short, we are helping some investors start a coffee shop at a hospital in the Chengyang district of Qingdao, near where we taught English last year. My background as an amateur baker and aesthetic eye and Turner's business background and skill with numbers make us a pretty good team. It will be called Cookies Cafe. (As an English major, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the pluralization... should it be possessive? And if so, who's Cookie?)
When we entered the picture, the coffee shop and kitchen had the bare minimum, tables, chairs, refrigerator, oven, stand mixer (which is almost as big as me!). We have had to buy the rest in the past couple days to get both up and running, including everything from sugar packets for the cafe to spatulas and flour for the kitchen.
Tomorrow I am going to be testing recipes before training the Chinese staff in western baking and cafe service. The menu will be fairly simple and straightforward to start. Remember, they have never heard of putting cinnamon in something sweet. Baby steps, folks. Here's the game plan: granola with yogurt, fruit salad, apricot scones, banana bread, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and lemon cake.
The things that we have not been able to find thus far in Qingdao? Muffin tins and vanilla extract. The thing that will drive up the price of baked goods? Butter.
This next picture should accompany the punch line of a joke...
"Howdya like 'dem beaters!?"
During our usual morning routine, one of us usually asks the other, "So, what do you want to do today?" The response entails exploring some area of the city or going grocery shopping, but today Turner said he wanted to be a bum and sit in Starbucks for the afternoon, sipping a latte and browsing on their wireless internet. Qingdao has five Starbucks, though they seem to be multiplying like rabbits. Whenever a large, high-end retail complex opens, they always have a Haagen Dazs and a Starbucks. We are currently in the newest of these complexes, owned by Hisense, that was built to please the international crowd for the Olympics and for the nouveau riche Qingdao-ren (people). Its stores include Prada, Hermes, Burberry, Tod's, and Tiffany's.
Coffee is a western luxury that few Chinese enjoy in a form other than instant 3-in-1 packets (coffee, milk, and sugar; just add hot water) that I use only in emergencies. The Starbucks' in China brew decent lattes and are hopping most of the time, probably because they also serve all sorts of milky, sugary tea and coffee blends (or fraps, as I've heard them called).
I walked through the Starbucks that we usually frequent, in the Jusco building, and was unable to find a seat anywhere because the Chinese are still enjoying the New Year holiday. The place looked mobbed! Turner had gone over to the Hisense building to meet up with a friend he made at Tiffany's (because he bought my Christmas present there) who knows a worker at the Starbucks who could get us a discount on merchandise. By the way, this is a prime example of what the Chinese call guanxi, or knowing the right people to get what you want. We got 30% off a couple of mugs I had been eyeing. The prices at Starbucks are equivalent to American prices, so things are not cheap, to say the least. We also got some coupons for "buy one latte, get one free." Talk about knowing the right people!
It's Sunday morning here in China, and I am sipping on my magical morning brew. I started drinking coffee about five years ago on a regular basis because my aunt gave us an old espresso machine that she was not using. So I started drinking soy lattes in the morning and soon became a coffee fiend. I can handle not having coffee every now and then but my day seems to go much smoother if I have a cup in the morning. Just one cup. I'm not one to drink five cups of coffee in a day, nor do I imbibe after no
on (most of the time). For Christmas a few years ago, Turner bought me a more powerful espresso machine and a burr grinder so we could have prefect lattes all the time. We also lived down the street from our local coffee roaster, Alakef in Duluth, MN.
So when our move to China became imminent, I was nervous about not being able to enjoy my brew in the land of tea. We packed a stove-top espresso maker and brought along a pound of Alakef grounds. For a while, my mom shipped coffee from Duluth to Qingdao so we could continue to enjoy coffee.Then, one fortuitous day, we bumped into a fellow foreigner at a DVD shop and he told us about his Chinese friend Gordon who owns the only coffee roasting shop in Qingdao. We found our way to his shop, near Jusco but tucked away in a building with a small sign, and made quick friends with Gordon and his fuwuyuan (shop girl). He imports beans from all over the world and roasts them on-site, from Columbian to Yunnan to his famous Espresso blend. We usually get the Espresso blend--it's strong, full-bodied, and just damn good. On our most recent visit, Gordon looked like a child on Christmas morning. He had just received a new restaurant-quality espresso machine (see the bottom image), so he can make all sorts of espresso drinks, for free of course because we buy beans from him.
In the morning these days, I roll over and poke Turner, asking him, "What time is it?" I'm not looking for the hour but for the response, "Coffee time!" He makes me coffee most mornings in a traditional filter set-up into my extra-large Starbucks Qingdao mug.
In the morning I baked while Turner manned the cafe with the new waitresses. The foreign patients at the hospital have showed a strong interest in having good coffee, comfort food, and a relaxing place to sit and sip, so we have done our best to provide this. Some of the owners show an interest in the cafe becoming more of a Chinese restaurant, which would counteract our efforts to make the cafe a unique environment as there are about as many Chinese restaurants as there are people. What the area inside and around the hospital does not have is a quiet, soothing environment with authentic western food and drink. Our job has been to create this, so we feel that it has been a success. Whether or not it is what the owners want is up to them.
When we entered the picture, the coffee shop and kitchen had the bare minimum, tables, chairs, refrigerator, oven, stand mixer (which is almost as big as me!). We have had to buy the rest in the past couple days to get both up and running, including everything from sugar packets for the cafe to spatulas and flour for the kitchen.
During our usual morning routine, one of us usually asks the other, "So, what do you want to do today?" The response entails exploring some area of the city or going grocery shopping, but today Turner said he wanted to be a bum and sit in Starbucks for the afternoon, sipping a latte and browsing on their wireless internet. Qingdao has five Starbucks, though they seem to be multiplying like rabbits. Whenever a large, high-end retail complex opens, they always have a Haagen Dazs and a Starbucks. We are currently in the newest of these complexes, owned by Hisense, that was built to please the international crowd for the Olympics and for the nouveau riche Qingdao-ren (people). Its stores include Prada, Hermes, Burberry, Tod's, and Tiffany's.
on (most of the time). For Christmas a few years ago, Turner bought me a more powerful espresso machine and a burr grinder so we could have prefect lattes all the time. We also lived down the street from our local coffee roaster, Alakef in Duluth, MN.
