Public Opinion on Dante Coffee and Mr. Brown Coffee

I don’t know if you have encountered a bad Louisa franchise, or not. But based on your account I suspect the you might be simply ordering the wrong stuff. Remember Louisa has two espressos—the cheaper one is frankly unimpressive and does leave an unpleasant aftertaste. The slightly more expensive option (I think in English it’s listed as “Speciality” or zhuang yuan in Mandarin) is delicious with milk, less so on its own. IMHO, it’s vastly better than any coffee served in the standard Starbucks stores in Taiwan (the Starbucks Reserve stores are a different story).

Guy

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My go to place in Ktown used to be this realy really nice cafe. They had an extensive menu of coffee and tea and fruit tea drinks . Really a very nicely done big cafe.
They would randomly put out cakes and cookies during the day and they were all free, all you had to do was to get up and grab some when they put it out. All the drinks were 130nt each but the cakes and cookies were always free (now this is 1995 pricing so maybe 130nt was worth what 230nt now? ). And one time i was thinking i need to go get lunch . This cafe provided nothing resembling food on its menu. But low and behold they came by with a small menu which was from a japanese restaurant nearby with about five bento box you can choose from. The food was super delicious and high quality…would normally be about 250nt at least. I saw no pricing on the menu but i thought what the heck cant be that much ! And when i went to pay i found out the lunch was totally complimentary !!

The cafe only charged for drinks, WHILE the cakes, cookies and LUNCH (if you are there at lunch time between 12 to 2pm) was FREE.

What an INSANE CONCEPT.

The owners must be wealthy people just using their land for SOMETHING until they sold it, which a year later they did. Became a fancy apartment building and the cafe disappeared…it was simply TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE for long.

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Remember where or the name? I will have see if still there?

For what it’s worth @tommy525 is probably looking back to the 1990s.

Like @DKaohsuing said, they were here for a few years and then gave up on the market, perhaps leaving about five years ago? Not sure if they made it to Kaohsiung in those days.

Like I’ve found with many international chains here, I enjoyed their products when they first arrived, but they were soon localized, pleasing … well, apparently no one.

…or earlier. Just finding coffee in Taiwan at that point was an accomplishment! :grin:

Guy

Ha. I remember even in 2000 visiting Taipei from Tainan, and going halfway across the city to pick up Starbucks coffee beans for what felt like half of my Tainan foreign friend circle.

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Can’t remember where this place was
I did say in my post I’m talking 1995
I’m sure known is quite different from 1995

I was last in Ktown briefly in 2012
I’m sure it’s different since then too

Yeah Barista was fancy pants back then. Few drank coffee at the time, including me!

Since this thread is ostensibly about Dante Coffee (among many other things…), this should have been noted months ago:

Guy

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Mr Brown uses the most disgusting coffee beans… it’s like burned Folgers.

Dante is … not bad, not good - just generic copy paste coffee.

I like your taste in cereal, but I have to disagree about Mr. Brown.

Dante, I reject though.

I can’t find them in the South. Do they still have the smoked salmon sandwiches? Just for those I’d drink their sub-par coffee.

Call me insane, but I actually prefer 7-11 coffee over most chains.

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I was in Taiwan 5 days staring out the window of a Dante thinking I’m already here 5 days and I better find a girlfriend if I’m going to learn Chinese. In walks a beautiful smart girl. A few years later we returned to the Dante and I put our 2 month old on the counter. Starbucks is better at everything and 10x better service. I knew a consultant who traveled Europe to study coffee shops. He said what Starbucks has is location and customer experience.

I returned to Taiwan and went out the next morning. At a coffee shop, the deal of the day was a cake and coffee with cream and sugar. I chose that but said “no creme no sugar”. The worker said “I have to ask my boss”. I laughed out loud and remembered I was in a Confucian society.

I’ve often said in Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan you have to ask the boss when you can inhale and ask again to exhale. Germany similar

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That is probably why Japan and Germany are so into robotics , as that is what they want, non “thinking” , hard working , robots. :grinning:

It’s pretty funny that you can customize like 1/5 sugar, 1/5 ice … but some things so simple breaks minds.

Reminds me of ji rou fan (chicken rice) - they give you this tiny portion. If you ask if they have a bigger version, they give you a pound of extra rice (no more chicken). I ask if I can buy extra chicken (just chicken) and … nope, I broke them with the question :laughing: I tried “ok, I’ll pay for another chicken rice … but no rice”. The concept that I’m a big American wanting some protein seems to go over some heads.

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And don’t spend that much mostly.

I like it more now that they offer strong lattes. It never quite had enough of a kick before.

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They are preparing to do an IPO.

My answer, no, they don’t make money. Read above.

Anyone up to start a place with good baked goods and excellent coffee?

They just left a few years ago, closed most if not all stores.