Each day after lunch, I usually head to Secret Recipe near Zhang Jiang subway station for a coffee before returning to the office. However, on January 31, Secret Recipe was unusually crowded, so I decided to grab my coffee at Starbucks instead.
At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I ordered a café latte, speaking in Chinese, and took my seat to enjoy it. However, as I settled in, I noticed something surprising written on the cup: the characters “老外,” which translates to “foreigner” in Chinese. I was taken aback, as this was the first time I had seen such a label on my cup.
The photo below captures this unexpected detail:
I’ve ordered coffee at Starbucks many times before, yet never noticed any writing on my cup, let alone something like this. It makes me wonder: is this some kind of new practice, or was it simply a one-off? Either way, it caught my attention and added an interesting twist to my coffee run that day!