Cake for the Government

Requirement # 937

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.