Came to make similar observation about 7-11 and FamilyMart in Taipei and Thailand. Both are clean, well-lighted places to get what you need. American places, last I darkened their doorstep, were good places to get a lotto ticket and a gallon of milk that has the minimum legally viable shelf life. Oh, and a pack of smokes. And some super sugary drink. And a cup of coffee, not complaining about that.
I got a star wars coffee cup from a 7-11 in Taipei a couple years ago. It's cool (horrible as a coffee cup...but still).
But even there...American 7-11s, you get the coffee from some ancient Bunn machine that makes it in batches when the attendant has time to get around to it. It's fine for the first 10 min's, then it goes off, real fast. The machine in Taipei is like next generation and probably that stuff gets flushed down a drain after so many minutes exposed to oxygen (but it's kept in a tank until it's dispensed so for all I know, there's no oxygen exposure between brew and dispense times). It probably helped that 90% of the people that go there for coffee are people that live right there in mid-rise apartments and hell yeah they've got time for you to make a fresh pot and "don't try to sell me this crap again". I never got coffee (and aforementioned smokes) in a convenience store that I wasn't on my way somewhere and wouldn't notice the stale coffee until I was in the car.
TomFromCupertino t1_iv5ax16 wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in [OC] Japan's Retail Giants: Convenience Stores by Equal-Crew-3367
Came to make similar observation about 7-11 and FamilyMart in Taipei and Thailand. Both are clean, well-lighted places to get what you need. American places, last I darkened their doorstep, were good places to get a lotto ticket and a gallon of milk that has the minimum legally viable shelf life. Oh, and a pack of smokes. And some super sugary drink. And a cup of coffee, not complaining about that.
I got a star wars coffee cup from a 7-11 in Taipei a couple years ago. It's cool (horrible as a coffee cup...but still).
But even there...American 7-11s, you get the coffee from some ancient Bunn machine that makes it in batches when the attendant has time to get around to it. It's fine for the first 10 min's, then it goes off, real fast. The machine in Taipei is like next generation and probably that stuff gets flushed down a drain after so many minutes exposed to oxygen (but it's kept in a tank until it's dispensed so for all I know, there's no oxygen exposure between brew and dispense times). It probably helped that 90% of the people that go there for coffee are people that live right there in mid-rise apartments and hell yeah they've got time for you to make a fresh pot and "don't try to sell me this crap again". I never got coffee (and aforementioned smokes) in a convenience store that I wasn't on my way somewhere and wouldn't notice the stale coffee until I was in the car.