And not just any coffee, but sweet blended iced coffees, called Frappus! Sound familiar to anybody? Okay, whoa! I've gotten ahead of myself here. Let me elaborate...
While back in New York City, Melissa and I developed a powerful addiction to coffee. The long hours we worked left us feeling tired and slumpish (GRE word for you there). But ho! Starbucks yonder! In fact, Starbucks coffee was on every city block and even made its way into our offices for an easier fix of the black stuff. Heck, it was even trendy to sit our butts down in Starbucks and sip on some fancy joe. So, when we came to China and found out that they drink hot water with grass floating in it (they call it tea), we knew that we'd just ordered a heaping plate of cold turkey.
It was in Fenghuang where we fell off the wagon. We were strolling along the narrow riverside path, when we saw a big sign for truffles. As we craned our necks in distant recognition of the word, we caught the whiff. Before we knew it, we were relaxing outside of Cafe Soul, Too sipping on tall cups and discussing the finer points of risotto and cheese with Rock and William, while people-watching. Life was good.
But then again, maybe it happened more like this: We dragged Rock and William into the cafe, forced them to order something, sat down outside, ranted to Rock and William about foreign cheeses, paid a 106 RMB bill and all the while, people stared at us. Yeah, that sounds about right. A Chinese girl even made her boyfriend take a picture of her sitting next to Melissa! That was a little weird.
Anyways, just sitting in the cafe and drinking coffee was one of the better parts of our vacation. It allowed us to feel as though we were experiencing a little bit of the good ol' US of A while on our scenic vacation. We also planted the seed of business venture into the minds of Rock and William, as their families own two good plots of real estate in Fenghuang. We told them that they should create a chain of coffee & ice cream cafes.
It would make sense for them to diversify from the overdone Chinese-themed store, because an express highway from Changsha to Fenghuang is about to be completed (a windy eight hour trip all of a sudden becomes a three hour straight shot). To me, that means that Fenghuang is about to be injected with a greater amount of foreign travellers. We told them that we would gladly act as outside counsel if they promised to give us free coffee. We've got our fingers crossed!
Cullen
0 comments:
Post a Comment