Greybox Coffee Shanghai Xintiandi store opening

Greybox is a coffee chain with fifty locations, trying to beat coffee giants in China such as Starbucks (3000 stores) Luckin (500 stores) and Costa (500). Each of these chains says they’ve got the best beans and machines, but only Greybox goes so far that they make extreme HR investments. So why not treat baristas like real artists?

That’s what we did. Dale Harris, the world barista champion, was invited to brew his signature drinks as well as coffee from the world’s most exclusive Panama Geisha bean. The workshop was assisted by the specially developed Taste Wheel, which journalists from selected lifestyle magazines could use to plot the many tastes they experienced.

 

Posts before the event:

 

Photos during the event:

 

Posts after the event:

 

The event on Igiyi News Express:

Latest

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Learning Chinese, or any language, makes you more aware of language in general. And one thing that surprised me is that, despite Mandarin being so different from my mother tongue (Dutch), both languages reach for the same units when weighing things: the kilogram (公斤, gōngjīn) and the half-kilogram (斤, jīn). It’s a small thing, but […]
June 24, 2026
Cake and Timepieces

Cake and Timepieces

There are multiple ways to define Shanghai. There’s the more modern version, with beautiful lanes full of expensive yoga studios or artisan coffee shops, lined with the London Plane Tree (法国梧桐) and the Wukang Mansion (武康大楼), and renovated parks like the North Bund (北外滩) and West Bund (西岸). There’s also the Shanghai as the international […]
June 23, 2026
A candle in Minnesota

A candle in Minnesota

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota, attending the morning mass at St. Bernard’s church. It’s about twenty years since I last attended a mass, and the first time I’ve ever done so voluntarily. I’m sure I’m drawn to this church near my Airbnb, compelled to go in, but I find it hard […]
June 14, 2026
Revisiting Columbine

Revisiting Columbine

Growing up in the Netherlands, it’s not immediately obvious (even to myself) that the history of the United States is also partly mine, but through TV series and movies — as well as the news — it’s also a country I lived in and grew up in. And unlike presidential elections or the September 11th […]
June 8, 2026