The Adventures of Chicago Coffee

Today we are connected around the world by a simple click of the button. Modern advances have made many aspects of life and work in China much easier than those before us. But I can surely bet that in an only a few years many will look back at Chicago’s Coffee beginnings with disbelief.

Recent events have reminded me of how truly far away Kunming is from the rest of the world. We may have KFC and Louis Vitton, but nothing says Kunming like riding in the back of seat-less van on the way to meet a potential business supplier.

June 7, 2007 1:45 pm

I set out to find a few companies that can supply our coffee mug and coffee cup needs. This seems like it would be an easy enough task when 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day around the world. That was my thought until I was standing at the corner of Nowhere and Timbuk2 wondering where this potential company’s location actually was. I made a quick call to ask them to come find me since it seemed pointless to continue wandering around. They obliged to pick me up and I was thankful until they rolled up in a beaten old van and swung the back door open and motioned me to get in to a van that didn't have any seats.

Not knowing what else to do, I got in, and grabbed onto the back of the front seat for dear life as we sped down the road. When the ride ended I got out to discover this cup company was not exactly what I had in mind. Instead of a nice office with some samples to choose from, there was a garage with thousands of boxes stacked on top of each other.

They did manage to have a few coffee mugs somewhere buried in these lego-like structures but unfortunately lime green didn’t match our desired theme. I politely turned down their offer and headed out past their donkey that may have just given me a ride back to my apartment if I had let him.

May 26th, 2007 10:13 am

The week after my trip to Guangzhou for the Coffee Fair and I received a call from a women explaining that my “thing” had arrived and I needed to come “there” to get it. It was true that I had ordered a “thing” also known as a coffee roaster, but it was terribly unclear where “there” was. After getting quite upset after I asked for the fourth time where “there” was she suggested that I give the phone to the driver when I got in a taxi, and that she would give the driver directions to “there.” This seemed like a fool proof plan until I realized that my inability to decipher the magical location of “there” was not due to my communication shortcomings but rather to the women’s when it took the taxi driver 5 minutes to get a general bearing on this companies location. Unfortunately, 30 minutes later left me standing by the side of the road somewhere in the vicinity of “there”, as explained by my driver. 4 conversations later with the women left her yelling at me, hanging up the phone, and refusing to answer my calls when I suggested that there was no way I was going to find her company if they didn’t help me. I waited a few minutes and caught her off guard when I called back so she suggested I get in another taxi and start the process over again. That eventually led to me getting to the right alley way but not without much frustration since my new driver couldn’t understand the women either. I meandered down the alley way in search a big sign that said “Delivery Company for all things coming from Guangzhou” or at least some Chinese characters that alluded to something along those lines but this is what I found.

Lots of garages, boxes, and dirt but no assemblage of anything that could be construed as being a company of any sort so I called my friend the women again. No answer. Dialed again. No answer. But that’s when I heard a faint ringing in the distance so I followed it hoping that the ringing would lead me to “there.” And it did.

“There” was a warehouse stacked with boxes all delivered from Guangzhou to Kunming. And sure enough there was the women yelling the directions of the company to some other sorry customer over the phone. I avoided the temptation to tell her that perhaps they needed somebody a little more helpful to answer the phones. But in the end I did get my roaster and I made sure to document it….

In case I never found my way back from “there.”