Blue Bottle Coffee's first Shanghai store recently officially opened on the banks of the Suzhou River in Jing'an District, located in a historic building originally built in 1926—the former senior staff dormitory of the Yutong Flour Mill. On opening day, a long line formed outside the store, with some customers waiting up to 7 hours to get in. This chain brand, known for pour-over coffee and favoring the renovation of old buildings, has a relatively concise menu, offering rare items such as Gibraltar, Drip Coffee Au Lait, and New Orleans-style iced coffee. The first floor of the store is modern in style, while the second floor is retro, and displays a 60-year-old FAEMA espresso machine. This article takes you on a virtual visit to this highly anticipated new coffee shop.

This morning, the typist's friend saw on WeChat Moments that several friends had shared their check-in experiences at Blue Bottle Coffee. One video shared around 8:30 a.m. showed a huge line outside the store! (The store officially opens at 8 a.m.) The friend who shot the video also said: The line is really long! I estimate a 3-hour wait...

- It is said that the number of people in the picture is only 1/4 of the line... It's clear that everyone is truly full of curiosity and anticipation for Blue Bottle Coffee! Whether it's the coffee offerings or the store design, Blue Bottle Coffee has been attracting the attention of coffee lovers and designers for years. One reason is that Blue Bottle Coffee made a name for itself through pour-over coffee, and another is that Blue Bottle Coffee loves to open stores in old buildings. Compared with the dazzling menus of other chain stores, Blue Bottle Coffee's menu is relatively simple, and it offers many coffee drinks that other chain coffee shops do not sell, such as Gibraltar, Drip Coffee Au Lait, and New Orleans Iced. The only non-coffee options are two sparkling water drinks, oolong matcha, and hot chocolate.

As for the pour-over coffee offerings, the typist has not yet tried the products from Blue Bottle Coffee Shanghai, but has tasted those from Hong Kong and Japan, and the taste and quality were quite good. From the baristas' preparation process, it can be seen that Blue Bottle Coffee focuses more on a pure brewing method, without complicated techniques or complicated thinking. There is no rushing of customers, and the baristas are also very focused, with everyone quietly waiting for the coffee to extract.

Blue Bottle Coffee likes to choose old buildings and renovate them into stores. First, old buildings themselves are full of history and stories. Directly renovating them into coffee shops allows coffee to better integrate with local culture. Second, making reasonable use of old buildings is also a form of protection and inheritance for architecture. This time, Blue Bottle Coffee chose a two-story Western-style house located on the banks of the Suzhou River in Jing'an District, Shanghai. The building was originally built in 1926, formerly the senior staff dormitory of the Yutong Flour Mill, and is one of the first batch of immovable cultural relics in Shanghai. The building has a brick-and-wood structure, with clean red brick exterior walls, and some parts use materials such as reinforced concrete, presenting a architectural style combining Chinese and Western elements.

The doors and windows inside the Western-style house were all preserved by the design team. A glass sliding door was added behind the wooden entrance door, so that everyone who enters the store can feel a sense of traveling from history to modernity. The first floor of the store is modern in style, using stainless steel, glass, and concrete as the main materials, with white as the main color. Behind the bar on the first floor are several large light-transmitting windows, and small windows are also distributed around and above the large windows. The stainless steel bar, dining tables, and coffee display tables can reflect light, making the entire store very bright and airy during the day. The white wall cabinets on one side display the brand's merchandise.

The second floor of the store is retro in style, with natural wood color as the main tone. The bar on the second floor is made from old door frames and window frames recycled locally in Shanghai, and the incomplete marks on the old wood have been fully preserved. Above the bar is placed the world's only 60-year-old FAEMA espresso machine. Each seat in the customer area is unique, with leather, fabric, rattan weaving... The non-uniform seating creates the feeling of an old Shanghai home.

ok! The text-based virtual store visit ends here! Did those friends who started lining up at 8:30 a.m. get to drink Blue Bottle Coffee? Yes! Around 3:30 p.m., they got in! They drank it! After waiting 7 hours...

Some friends on site said that scalpers have already started a proxy-buying business. Blue Bottle Coffee's Americano, priced at 32, has a proxy-buying price of 120+...

Some friends also said that the most surprising thing is not the high proxy-buying price, but the people lining up at Blue Bottle Coffee while ordering Starbucks delivery...

Ah... well... Blue Bottle Coffee is not only open for one day, and it won't raise prices after just one day! Coffee beans and merchandise can also be bought in the official store! There's no need, really no need... The pandemic is not yet completely stable now, so if everyone can avoid joining the crowd, then don't gather!!! Image source: Blue Bottle Coffee, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Internet For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style) For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.