Join RAS on Sunday, September 24, for a coffee tasting and coffee-focused discussion about urban renewal.

Shanghai is the city with the most coffee shops in the world. Yet some of the most popular cafés and coffee houses aren't the giant brands but local cafes that use old architecture and heritage to create new community sites and culture. In this talk, local urban planner and preservation expert Yo Ma will discuss how coffee has adapted to Shanghai tradition and reignited the city's active lane life.

We will start at the speaker's café, LANERS, situated at the entrance to a historic lane house on Yongjia Road called Shen Cheng Li that was built in 1931. The building used to be a communal water-boiling spot for the neighborhood and has since been turned into a community café for the people of the lane. We will then walk to a nearby coffee roaster to learn about the process of roasting coffee beans.

Throughout the event, we will taste several types of coffee beans and learn how to differentiate between each distinctive roast and blend.