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  • 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!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 sparkling 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 effects.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.

Hey guys, it's Inga.

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