Founded in 1995 Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea Inc. brings a passion for coffee and a focus on exceptional quality. This coffee company with three locations in downtown Chicago and one in L.A. has received many awards and their baristas continually perform well in barsita competitions around the world. My favorite coffee shop in the western hemisphere has a simple setup but their roasting, their drink preperation, and the excellent taste of their drinks is anything but simple. Although Starbucks started the coffee revolution I beleive it is Intelligentsia that is perfecting it.
Despite the frustrations of most companies we deal with there are 5 ,err, 3 companies I would like to recognize for excellent service or products.
1. WS Coffee (Guangzhou) One of the few companies that delivers every single time. Never a fake excuse. Never a delay of shipment. Sometimes they lack complete knowledge of their product but they make up for it by consistently sending us free samples.
2. XinCon Consultancy (Kunming)
XinCon or now ShinCon made a registration process much easier than I could ever have imagined. Friendly and competent staff.
3. Nestle (Kunming)
Props for not putting melamine in their milk. Otherwise I am not sure how we would of been able to keep frothing milk for lattes and stuff. We had a great sales rep. until she moved onto another job so hopefully their service will stay great.
A report by Bloomberg pointed to a price increase due to Brazil's production decline and roasters rebuilding of stockpiles. "Brazil's total output of coffee, including robusta and arabica beans, may drop to 40-42 million bags from 45 million bags this year, according to Brazil's Coffee Exporters Council."
Friend of Chicago Coffee and Professor at Kunming University received acknoweldgement this week from a local magazine for her bartending abilities. Tian FuRong, 田芙蓉, created and runs a bartending and barista course at a nearby college. I have worked with her a few times to help bloster the coffee and barista portions of their course. It has been great to have the chance to work with her to give students this opportunity.
Provide 4 cakes and 6 cups of coffee for inspection
Provide 4 cakes and 6 cups of coffee in any container but plastic bags for inspection
Provide 4 cakes and 6 cups of coffee in any container but plastic bags for inspection before 11 AM
Provide 4 cakes and 6 cups of coffee in pizza box and plastic sealed cups for inspection before 11 AM
Provide 4 cakes and 6 cups of coffee in sealed plastic cups and sealed plastic bags for inspection before 11 AM
Provide 6 cakes and 8 cups of coffee sealed in plastic bags and plastic cups for inspection before 11 AM and bag up any dignity and patience you have left and we will dispose of that for you as well
I envisioned that my musings would be solely focused on the raw pure delight of a hot brewed cup of coffee but as it turns out there is a lot of 麻烦 (mafan) or trouble that goes into serving that cup of coffee here. Alas these are my musings about coffee and my experiences of being able to serve that coffee here in Kunming.
In order to get a particular license renewed, we literally dealt with the ebb and flow of the requirement listed above. The reason it has been amended 5 times was because of the different requirements we were given each time we went to the gov. department to turn in our materials to be inspected. It went a little like this: we make the trip to the gov. department, inquire as to what exactly needed to be done to meet this requirement, a gov. official instructs us what to do, we return back to the coffee shop, bake and brew the necessary items, return the follow day to the same gov. department, and finally we are told by the same gov. official a completely different set of instructions.
Adding to all of this was originally their reluctance to tell us what to do for this requirement because A) they weren't 100% sure they were the right department for this inspection and B) the inspection fee was unclear until they conferred and pulled a very large number out of thin air and then quoted us that. I am sure there must of been confusion because of our insistence to do all of this by the book when I am certain that most companies don't even bother and take the short cut. Otherwise, I am not sure how we were only the second company that week to apply out of the tens of thousands of companies that have to also pass this inspection every year.
Posts
