- Hey guys, it's Inga.
So, I'm in Shanghai for a few days visiting family
and they told me about this super cool Starbucks.
Apparently, it is the largest
and the fanciest Starbucks in the world.
It's actually right there,
behind me.
Recently, coffee culture has been growing a lot in China,
so I'm really excited to go in
and see what it's all about.
Alright, let's go!
(classical music)
So we are now inside Starbucks Reserve.
I got a little too excited,
but we're gonna do the Discover Tasting Journey.
The Discover Tasting Journey involves
four drinks and one food item of your choice.
You write your name down.
It shows you the entire map of the place.
But more importantly,
here's our first drink.
It's a smoked butterscotch latte.
We have to go to the main bar.
They're gonna make you
the coffee right there at the bar table.
You can leave tasting notes if you want to.
It's not just about tasting the coffee.
It's learning about the coffee culture
and just, like, what goes into it,
so I'm excited.
Let's start with this
super awesome smoked butterscotch latte.
This is the main bar.
So, now we have the receipt.
We're just gonna go and get our drink.
I just got my first drink.
According to this pamphlet, there is
smoked butterscotch and milk and espresso in here.
I feel like this is something we would
get at Starbucks in America.
Let's give it a shot.
It's really creamy, actually not super sweet.
It's actually really quite delicate.
Maybe it's the smokiness in here
that kind of adds another layer of flavor.
I think this would be a huge hit
if they launch this in America.
Alright, we're gonna go check out the second drink.
Second location is the pairing bar.
I think it comes with chocolate.
There's chocolate over here.
Let's go!
So, we are on our second drink.
This is the section that features black coffee
using the beans that they roast in house.
They have a lot of different blends.
One's from Colombia, from Tanzania.
The one that we're trying today
is called the Pantheon blend.
Specific to China.
You can't get this blend anywhere else.
That means we have to try it.
As you can see, it's really just a cup of black coffee.
It comes with chocolate from Belgium.
Mm!
This is milk chocolate.
Now, the coffee.
I'm no coffee expert,
but this pairing works really well.
Normally, when we go to Starbucks,
it's more like a grab and go kind of experience.
This is really one of those coffees
that you kind of have to sit down and enjoy your time
and really, like, taste the coffee.
Two down, two more to go.
(upbeat guitar music)
So there's two floors.
We're on the second floor now, the Teavana section.
Everything here is about tea,
which is why our third drink is actually
a specialty tea drink, the sparking silver needle.
It looks like this.
There is a couple of ingredients including
silver needle tea, which is a type of white tea from China.
And then there's also strawberry sugar cubes
that you now can't see very much of,
but it was really cool when he put it in
and it just started fizzing like crazy.
They actually put this in this nitro machine
giving it some bubbly affects.
I don't really know what to expect.
The quality of the tea is so good.
The taste of it is very light.
What's really cool about this drink too, is that
it kind of touches upon mixology.
It's almost like making a cocktail,
but with tea, so they're experimenting
with a lot of different flavors.
This Starbucks is really stepping up their game.
This is really good.
It's probably my favorite so far, I would say,
which is awkward because it's not coffee.
(slow classical music)
We are on our last drink,
the hazelnut whisper.
It's a very posh name.
Milk foam on the very top, a shot of espresso.
There's also regular milk flavored with
some sort of chocolate hazelnut syrup.
It's a very pretty, sort of, three layered drink.
This is the first cold coffee drink.
You can really smell the hazelnut in here.
Do I have a milk mustache?
(Inga chuckles)
Normally, at Starbucks when you have a syrup based drink,
you usually only taste the syrup
and you don't really taste the coffee.
This is the other way around.
So in this case, you really only taste a hint of hazelnut,
which I absolutely love.
Also, interesting fact.
They actually don't serve any frappuccinos here.
They really want to keep it true to
the coffee drinks you normally find at cafes.
We're gonna now move on to food.
Here I have the pizza that came with the Tasting Journey.
It is a house made pizza with
Italian sausage, asparagus and mushroom.
It's apparently made in the traditional Italian ovens
that they have in house.
This is really good for Starbucks pizza.
You can taste that it's freshly made.
Ingredients are super fresh.
That crust; crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
If you told me this came from a pizzeria,
I would believe it.
I'm gonna end it off with a chocolate cake
that actually was recommended to me by people here.
It's a dark chocolate cake with mousse and chocolate curls.
The texture is very very smooth
and it just melts in your mouth.
There's this, sort of, bitter sweetness to it.
This is probably one of those few chocolate cakes
that you would be able to finish a whole slice of
without feeling like you're gonna be sick.
Everything here has surpassed my expectations.
The people here are genuinely
really passionate about coffee.
I am super super impressed.
If you haven't been here,
you should really check this place out.
I'm probably not gonna be able to get any sleep tonight,
but you know what, it's gonna be worth it.