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  • I'm in Shanghai, about to go inside the world's largest Starbucks.

  • Yes, it's in China, not Dubai.

  • This is called Starbucks Reserve Roastery, which means it has its own roasting facility inside the store.

  • It's massive, even meant to resemble the experience of an amusement park.

  • This is the map inside.

  • It also serves as an innovation center.

  • Beer infused with coffee.

  • In 2017, Starbucks opened its first Starbucks Reserve, a higher-end experience with Nitro draft lattes and alcoholic drinks.

  • Now it's planning to open a 1,000 more of them.

  • But the roastery is on another level.

  • This is what's known as the tasting room. It's for organized events, tastings, things like that.

  • The craziest part?

  • There's a separate standalone Starbucks literally across the street.

  • One of the first things you see when you walk in here isn't anything related to coffee, but is actually chocolate.

  • It's kind of like being at a Godiva store.

  • The Roastery is hard to miss.

  • Once the coffee is packed, it goes through what's known as the symphony pipes, which go up along the ceiling as you can see above me.

  • And then it goes all the way over to this coffee bar.

  • At the root of the store is, of course, coffee.

  • Here you can see where the coffee beans come from. You can see Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Tanzania.

  • And every two to three months that changes depending on where the sourcing team finds the Starbucks Reserve coffee beans.

  • Then there's the hand-crafted coffee bar experience.

  • It's not a quick experience.

  • It's gonna take about five minutes from the start of the boiling of the water.

  • But that was done deliberately so that the baristas can engage with the customers, and talk to them a little bit on a personal level about the coffee.

  • It comes with a card in Chinese.

  • But if you read Chinese then you can see where the coffee came from, the flavor profile, a little bit more about what you're about to drink.

  • In addition to selling food, coffee and merchandise, Starbucks tests out products here too.

  • This is a beer infused with Starbucks coffee.

  • It's exclusive to this location in Shanghai and one flagship store in Beijing.

  • So you can't get this outside of China.

  • My brain is a bit confused about whether I'm going to a nine a.m. meeting or a six o'clock happy hour.

  • This mojito is available as a non-alcoholic beverage.

  • But it's also available with alcohol, where it would have everything it has now, with a little bit of rum as well.

  • The food is all made by a strategic partner, Princi.

  • It's a Milan-based cafe and bistro, that has croissants, pastries and even pizza.

  • Coincidentally, I tried out a Princi just a few months earlier in Milan.

  • So, is their pizza in Shanghai as good?

  • This pizza?

  • Not as good as it was in Milan.

  • I suppose that's to be expected.

  • Also, it's certainly not cheap.

  • A slice of pizza costs 78 yuan.

  • That's more than 10 dollars.

  • Working here is a title that's considered to be earned.

  • To get a job here isn't exactly easy.

  • In fact, you have to start out at another Starbucks store within China and work your way to this one.

  • There's a, sort of competition to get a job here, which will test your knowledge of coffee, your customer service skills.

  • And eventually, if you're good enough, then you can work at this Starbucks Reserve Roastery.

I'm in Shanghai, about to go inside the world's largest Starbucks.

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