Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour,欢迎回来酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu.

Fancy seeing you in the studio.

Fancy seeing you here too.

Jokes aside, what are we gonna talk about today?

Well. Today I thought we'll choose a topic that means a lot to me, it's very close to my heart.

安澜喜欢的话题, old books, really really old mildew books?

No.

Scotch?

No.

Oh. Then there's only one thing left, coffee.

Yes. So today I thought let's talk a little bit about coffee. Now the reason why I have chosen coffee apart from the fact that I am completely addicted to coffee. I know Lulu that you don't drink coffee.

I can’t. I physically cannot drink coffee.

No idea how you can survive.

I guess I just drink. So…

Okay. Fair do.

If you know us very well or know me very well, you probably heard me mention on several occasions that I don't really drink coffee, or can't really drink coffee, because I get pretty bad heart palpitations.

And if I don't drink coffee, I actually feel physically unwell. I am very, very addicted to coffee now.

就是我是那种喝不了咖啡的体质,会心动过速, 然后安澜是那种特别典型的, I think many Europeans are like that, you guys get... are so addicted to coffee, you literally get coffee headaches if you don't drink coffee.

Yeah. The first thing I do in the morning is make myself a coffee before anything else.

If you're in a place where coffee is not available?

Woo. That doesn't happen. Even if I go somewhere, if I go into the countryside, for example, I love going into the outskirts of Beijing. I always take coffee with me.

You know. Years ago, I remember when I was in Germany and I went into like a, I don't know, I needed to do some procedural thing and I went into like an office, like a functional office.

And then I saw the poster on the wall, saying “there's no life before coffee”. And I tested that to be true, because I was talking to the person working there. Obviously, she didn't have her coffee. And she was filling in the form about me, and she looked at me, and she felt in gender as “unknown”.

Hahaha…

So what it does...

That could be coffee, that could be other reasons, but I’m not gonna be rude.

So coming back to the topic, why did you choose this topic apart from the fact that you're so addicted to coffee?

The thing that got me thinking was a few days ago. I was reading an article on Chinese social media about a coffee shop in Shanghai, that was charging around six thousand RMB for a cup of coffee.

Hang on a minute. 6k for a cup of joe?

That's right.

I... people are going for it?

Not anymore. This place closed down after 3 months.

Yeah.

So it got me thinking about coffee, it got me thinking about coffee culture around the world.

So let's talk about that.

But first of all, did you see that news about the coffee shop in Shanghai?

No, I have to say I’m not all that interested in news about coffee to start with, and also I can't say I’m overly surprised that it happened in shanghai, again, it's not a judgment on Shanghai, but you've heard of this really big expensive city walk that requires you to have such and such really pricey clothes.

So I mean shanghai is a luxurious city, isn't it?

Yeah. And I was just wondering how on earth can a cup of coffee cost 6,000RMB? I was reading the global production of the beans that they used is only 25 kg.

Globally?

Globally. So around the world they only produce 25 kg of these beans.

Okay. That makes sense then如果全球的产量才是25公斤的话, this is just for the novelty value. I suppose there will be people paying 6,000 to just taste it.

This reminds me of a very, very expensive coffee like even for me, I don't really drink coffee, but I know this, or I’ve heard of it. I’ve even tasted a little bit of it. This is Kopi Luwak.

Yes. I’ve drunk Kopi Luwak as well.

Oh, fancy~ Kopi Luwak如果大家没有听过这个的话, 中文名你一定听过,叫做猫屎咖啡.

Yeah, cat poop coffee.

We have it very very straightforward.

Yeah.

That's from Indonesia, isn't it?

Yeah. It's a coffee that comes from Indonesia, and it comes from the civet cat, or just civet.

Civet 我查了叫麝猫或者麝香猫. They're not really cats.

No. No. They're distantly related but they’re different from cats.

如果大家查 Civet它的那个图片, they look more like little squirrels of some sorts, 叫灵猫科.

And it's supposed to be they eat this coffee beans or coffee cherries, and they poop them out, and somehow that gives the coffee bean a special flavor, a really complex aroma?

Well, yeah. If you poop something out it's gonna probably have a very complex aroma. If I poop out coffee beans, it's probably gonna have a very complex aroma.

Ew.

But thankfully they don't sell Kopi 安澜.

So basically the situation is that the coffee cherries are eaten by civets. Now the coffee bean is inside the coffee cherry, that coffee bean goes through a type of fermentation in the stomach.

就是发酵.

Yeah.

Mhm.

And then, it's pooped out or more formally excreted by the civet and they gathered up.

Mhm. I hope they washed them before.

They're thoroughly washed and clean before being drunk. So don't worry.

You're not going to kind of smell civet poop on it.

Yeah. I think it's just some sort of... it obviously it doesn't smell like, it doesn't have a bad smell. I think it's just the acidity if I read it... based on what I’ve read就是什么酸度什么的and then they create this really complex aroma which a lot of coffee enthusiasts really appreciate, and they're really expensive. I think they're more expensive than gold.

Yeah. I’ve tried it once, years ago.

How much is it?

I tried it in Beijing actually, and I think I spent about 200RMB on it.

On one cup?

On one cup.

Okay.

And I was really, really excited. They gave me in a very pretty little cup, and I tried it, and I thought okay, it's nice.

It's not worth it?

It's not worth it.

Yeah, I think again, it's kind of, I think for most people is probably more novelty value more than anything.

Yeah. I tried it, don't get me wrong. It was a very nice cup of coffee, but I’ve had nicer coffee for cheaper to be honest with you.

Yeah. I think I’ve read it probably the higher end of Kopi Luwak for one cup is $100.

Yeah. I probably only had like this sort of budget version for 200RMB, so that's probably why as well. They probably have like one Kopi Luwak being in it and the rest was just normal coffee.

And the reason why they're called Kopi Luwak is, Kopi is coffee, and Luwak is Indonesian language, the local slang for that civet cat, civet.

Yeah.

Now we talk about this Kopi Luwak as a novelty, but do you know that there's actually ethical controversy over this whole Kopi Luwak, because it's supposedly people were raising these civets, these animals in a really, really bad condition, so in a really bad environment, so that they just keep on producing pooping, whatever. And it's actually animal cruelty.

I have heard about that. To be honest when I did try this Kopi Luwak, I did double check to make sure that it wasn't from, I guess like battery farming.

Yeah. Battery farming就是关一个小笼子里面.

Yeah.

It's so sad that whenever there's monetary gains to be made and then this happens.

Oh, yeah. The thing that always gets me is the first person who must have tried it, what was going through their head?

I know. Okay. So, enough about one of the most expensive coffees in the world. Let's talk about coffee culture.

So, enough about one of the most expensive coffees in the world. Let's talk about coffee culture.

Oh, yes.

Coffee drinking culture, Café culture around the world.

This is one of the things I love about traveling is when you go to different Cafés around the world, because they're so so unique. And even countries where coffee is only been around for a very short time like Japan have already developed their own coffee culture. And it's amazing. So what I thought is let's talk a little bit about coffee around the world.

Okay. Great. I think we need to start from Italy.

Of course.

Because in some of my classes when we were talking about coffee drinking, obviously you talk about all these blended coffee, 所有那些平时我们常喝的那种混合咖啡的种类, 什么Cappuccino, Latte.

Yeah.

These are not English words. These are Italian words.

No, we talk about that in our A1 course. And if you go to Italy, the main coffee that always comes to people's mind is espresso.

And they hate it when you pronounce it espresso.

Yes, and they don't even call it espresso. They just call it coffee. Because that is what a coffee is to most Italian people. And espresso, you go to a cafe to drink it.

Espresso is that really, really tiny thing, 意式浓缩.

Very, very small.

Oh. It's so bitter.

It's made with an espresso machine and very very very fine grounded coffee. You say it's bitter, but most people add sugar to it.

Yeah. Still bitter.

Ahh. It's so lovely and smooth, but it always relies on the barista to get it just right.