There's always work at the post office coffee shop

Shanghaiist, still jobless, was heartened to read this news from the Hindustan Times about the shortage of baristas in Beijing and Shanghai:

According to a survey by China's ministry of labour and social security, job vacancies for baristas in Beijing and Shanghai alone hit more than 10,000.

It's no secret, coffee consumption is on the up and up.

Browsing around for information in the Chinese media about the coffee shops in Shanghai, we found this article which has an interesting comparison of coffee shops in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. It says that the coffee houses in Shanghai have good atmosphere, but that the coffee largely sucks. The opposite is true in Hong Kong, and Taipei is the only place that has both atmosphere and good coffee. The strange thing about this article is that it lists some coffee places in Shanghai, including rather odd choices like DKD and Face (or maybe we've just never thought of ordering coffee there), and fails to mention everyone's favorite hipster haven, Boonna. By the way, does anyone remember when you could actually find seats at Boonna? Before they had wireless, and before there was a Boonna 2? Those were the days to remember. Now we usually just walk wistfully by, hoping that a caffeine-addled hipster from Berlin or Brooklyn will find themselves unable to surf the internet without a pack of smokes and maybe vacate their seat long enough for us to sneak in. Of course, Xinle Lu has a plethora of coffee shops, but without the graphic designers, photographers, corporate types on the lam, and next James Joyce sitting by you, it just ain't the same. Nonetheless, we're at a point where chewing coffee gum might be something our teeth and lungs are going to thank us for a couple of years down the line.

Photo of the Metrosexual Tarot Barista card from thomasscoville.com.