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> At 9:27, once I’ve brushed my teeth, answered a few messages, and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I order a coffee through WeChat. There’s a payments window on
by jcbrand 7y ago
> At 9:27, once I’ve brushed my teeth, answered a few messages, and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I order a coffee through WeChat. There’s a payments window on the app, and when you click on it you see various options, some proprietary to WeChat and some which are independent apps that run on WeChat’s platform. I open the Meituan delivery app and scroll through all the coffee options around me. I order an Americano. I have my WeChat linked with the facial recognition scanner on my iPhone; when I pay, I just hold my phone up to my face and a green tick flicks across the screen. Seven minutes later, I get a message telling me the coffee is on the way, with the name and number of the delivery driver. It arrives at 9:53.
Is it too much effort to just make your own coffee in your own apartment? Does that now also have to be delivered to you? The amount of waste involved in this just boggles my mind.
- sergiomattei 7y agoUh... What? It's the reason Starbucks exists. People are on the go, and they don't want to make their own coffee. This is literally the same as going to the corner coffee shop to buy a Frappuccino.
- jcbrand 7y agoGoing to Starbucks is not the same as having coffee delivered to your home, especially not if you walk there.
- mstaoru 7y agoIn China everything is delivered by electric scooters, delivery people get paid for it, more coffee shops can survive because otherwise they would have to provide more space which is very expensive, and most coffee is delivered in a paper bag with a paper cup stand.
- drubbo 7y agoThe paper cup won't be recycled though, and electricity isn't pulled from thin air.
- ubercow13 7y agoIf you went to the coffee shop yourself, it would probably be on your own electric scooter anyway. And you'd take your coffee away in the same paper cup.
- mstaoru 7y agoStep by step, my friend. We cannot expect the whole industry to shift overnight, but the shift to more paper bags, recycling, renewable energy is happening in China right now. Tier 1 cities are very tough on recycling right now, and most residential complexes had set up very good recycling guidelines since ~March, which are, surprisingly, followed by local residents. Next year they're opening a new nuclear plant nearby, and some wind turbines are being set up now along the coast. One step at a time.
- janekm 7y agoPaper bag... Not always. Coffeebox deliver it in a giant cardboard gift box surrounded by reflective thermal bubble wrap. Felt like I was paying more for the packaging than the coffee... Luckin I suppose do go for the paper bag and pay a fortune for immediate delivery to ShunFeng. The joys of VC funded coffee businesses I suppose...
- mstaoru 7y agoFWIW they probably pay 4-6 rmb to SF. Their rates for commercial customers are much lower than for individual customers. Given the high rent, I bet this is still more efficient for them than running a 500+ sqm joint like Starbucks.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- yborg 7y agoIf the corner coffee shops took 26 minutes to get me a cup of coffee I'd probably have to give it up entirely if I was really too lazy to spend the 90 seconds of effort in my kitchen that gives me a cup of coffee in about 5 minutes.
- close04 7y ago> It arrives at 9:53 If you can count on that arrival time (within minutes), you can just time it so it coincides with you getting out the door. No need to worry about forgetting the pot on the stove, or noisy grinders, etc. It's more likely you'll make a mistake in the morning especially if you're not a morning person and you're still half asleep and in a hurry. There's something for everyone.
- CandyFace 7y agoThis is why coffee machines with timers were invented. 5 min before I go to bed, all I have to do is prepare the coffee and pour water, then press the button to activate at the preferred time interval. At 7:15 am the machine will start and there we go, coffee ready. The machine also turns itself off within 45 min, so you never risk leaving anything running.
- rconti 7y agoIt's very easy to spend 15 minutes every time you go to Starbucks. It's not my thing (I mostly drink free coffee at work, from my espresso machine at home, choose other coffee shops, or if I must use Starbucks, I place a mobile order). But the lines tend to be very long, and it takes a long time to get a beverage. I guess people don't mind it because it's a part of the day, a break, a 'treat'. I find it a hassle, but in a way if it's part of your 30 minute coffee break from work, maybe it's not so bad.
- th3iedkid 7y ago>Is it too much effort to just make your own coffee in your own apartment? Does that now also have to be delivered to you? The amount of waste involved in this just boggles my mind. Not from China but have been different phases of life where have either preferred to have early morning coffe delivered/fetched/made myself in my apartment. Different priorities would drove the choices for me. Pricing differences between walking-fetching and having it delivered it on a schedule to my place were not much. Making it often required me to maintain a lot of things , which i preferred depending on place, nature of work besides other priorities.
- bamboozled 7y agoI’m curious, do people even enjoying drinking nice / real coffee anymore when drinking from Starbucks or have it delivered and sipping it at your desk or in the elevator, or is this just some kind of habit like smoking? Why not just wash down a caffeine pill with warm glass of water for the kick and move when time pressed?
- wingerlang 7y agoMaybe they think it tastes good?
- noitsnot 7y agoI might do that if companies started putting pills in the break room instead of Keurig. I consider coffee and cream a benefit like health care at this point.
- JCharante 7y agoYou would get a resistance not too long after. I quit caffeine pills because even if I only ever took them once a week they would do nothing but have bad sideeffects. Now I take 5 hour energies/redbulls or else I feel tired by noon after sleeping for 13 hours.
- kolla 7y agoNot sure what coffee shops you have near you but the ones where I live have better coffee than most people have at home.
- powerapple 7y agoWeChat basically created a platform, allows third party apps to have their html5 version of app in WeChat platform. Basically the same as Google Login. You can choose to use their independent version of app directly to do the same thing. WeChat is very successful on this platform, I can imagine future phones just need WeChat to work properly and all the apps in it will function. Those apps are not WeChat or Tencent apps though, just web apps work inside WeChat.
- Proven 7y agoIt's not to save effort or increase convenience, it's the slave's pleasure of doing what they're told. The party must like that feature.
- drubbo 7y agoThe author also waited 25 minutes for a coffe; it takes 2 with a moka, half with a coffee machine.
- ohnope 7y ago2 minutes with a moka? I seriously need to step up my game. 1 minute: hang grind fresh beans 1 minute: take out moka pot, fill with water, put coffee in, put on stove 3-6 minutes depending on ambient temp: moka boils 1 minute: pour cup, wash out moka pot Moka is such a pain. I drip now for time efficiency.
- ghaff 7y agoI have way too many coffee makers of various types at home. I always seem to end up circling back to electric drip. Fewest actions and least manual intervention of any approach first thing in the morning. (I don't really like Keurig and it's pretty wasteful--and I generally want more than one cup anyway.)
- mywittyname 7y agoDrip is also the most consistent way to brew coffee.
- shostack 7y agoIf you can afford it and care about grind quality, there are much quicker grinders out there. The Baratza Sette 270 grinds with fantastic precision compared to other grinders on the market (even the Vario), and goes through 19g of beans in about 5 seconds.
- ohnope 7y agoI currently use a hario hand grinder (ceramic bur). I imagine the grind consistency improves with an electric, but I’m curious if it has a noticeable effect taste wise.
- drubbo 7y ago
- nerd7473 7y agoAbsolutely right, people need to get up off their asses (sorry) if they want coffee.
- kingkawn 7y agoCmon cmon, in nyc people have been calling the bodega to order anything and everything for decades, including single cups of tea.
- panglott 7y agoYep, Chengdu is a huge, dense city, with about 10 million people. Now I'm feeling nostalgic, I was only there for a few weeks, but with the parks, teahouses, and food, it was my favorite city in China.
- La-ang 7y agoLol.Those poor people tracking him on behalf of the CPC on Wechat must be also making the same assumption, but they have bills to pay :D
- jshowa3 7y agoEven worse, could you maybe leave your room and go get a coffee? It literally would've taken you the same amount of time if you did just that depending on how close the coffee place is, and I would guess it isn't far.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago> Is it too much effort to just make your own coffee in your own apartment? Don't even need extra equipment. Trader Joe's has a nice cold-brew. Pour a finger width into a cup, add some almond/coconut milk, then put in the microwave for ~60 seconds. Hot vitamin-c in under two minutes. No way I could wait almost thirty.
- darkpuma 7y agoYeah, 26 minute turnaround for coffee is pretty damn shit, even by starbucks standards, but I expect the novelty of getting coffee delivered is sufficient to keep something this ridiculous on the market.