undermined the Forbidden City's solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture.

Hate to break it to them, but the completely Chinese run tourist trap that is the Fobidden City is what undermines it. It was only a matter of time before the Starbucks and McD's showed up there.

While I love a good cup of coffee as much as the next person, I'd have to say good riddance to that. I mean, how would the Muslim community feel to have a starbuck in the Kabba (sp) or the Italians to have a starbucks in the Colisseum or the Americans to have one in the Capitol? Somethings should jsut be left alone.

Well, there's a McDonalds in the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.

Right or wrong, I have no sympathy for Starbucks. If I travel to China, I think I'll stay away from western stores and actually enjoy another culture.

@rocnrule: Enjoy those cardboard dumplings!

Wow, the U.S. is full-on trade warring on China. That's just plain stupid. They WILL lose. China, Korea, and Japan hold most of our debt. We start pulling the tiger's tail, it will swipe us with man-killing claws.

I just returned from 2 weeks in china, and although I am not a big fan of starbucks $3 coffee... the chinese haven't figured out how to make a good cup of coffee. After about 10 days on tour, the starbucks store in Shanghai was a welcome sight...

[www.flickr.com]

Hey, as long as we're going to be inundated by Starbucks locations, I sure wish they built them looking like that here. That's a great facade.

I hate Starbucks coffee. Nasty, burnt bitter. . .but I have to agree with DCVISION. I'd drink Starbucks any day over the coffee in China. Nasty stuff, that is. Although I don't agree with having it IN the Forbidden City. I don't think chains should be aloud in any national monument. They belong to the people, not the corporations, and corporations shouldn't be profiting from them.

Maybe they could have stayed in the Forbidden City if they had agreed to offer ethylene glycol as a syrup for their flavored coffees.

@rocnrule: maybe if visiting any country but China, where they serve old fish and food bleached by hydrogen peroxide.

@Fuzz: What do you expect from coffee made from human hair?

So the store with the bobbing Mao dolls is next on the list?

According to this CNN article, "Starbucks out of China's Forbidden City," here's what led Starbucks to close in the Forbidden City:

"Eden Woon, Starbucks vice-president for Greater China, said the museum management had decided to introduce its own branded stores and merchandise after a year-long review.

"Starbucks was offered the option to revamp the outlet as a "coffee shop" selling domestic coffee and other beverages alongside its own brew, but decided it wanted to maintain its own brand."

In addition, "The Starbucks store was located inside the vast complex, where the museum management also operates cafes and eateries selling coffee, tea and beer."

It appears to me that museum management believes it can make more money on concessions on its own than having to split the profits with Starbucks, and with a captive tourist audience they're probably right.

@synergy: "Wow, the U.S. is full-on trade warring on China..."

uh, no... well unless you consider sensationalist journalism, blogging, and commenting as warfare. sounds more like bitching to me, just as i am doing now. if someone hasn't already, there needs to be a "i h8 chinese products" myspace page, to make the war official and everything.

This was probably a test case for the museum people - "look, we let them in for a year or so, see how the business does, and then kick em out and copy it - dvd-style"

@DCvision: I don't know how it was in Shanghai, but I've never paid more than $1.85 for their coffee. Perhaps you got "Shanghai'd"

@LionelEHutz: Isn't that what Juicy Raspberry is made from?

@josh1701: So the other shoe drops. It's not that the Chinese want to retain the sanctity of a treasured national monument from crass commercialism, it's that they want their adulterated, knock-off, probably poisoned products to crassly commercialize a venerated national monument. Good to know.

If the city doesn't have a Starbucks there, who cares? There's only 8 bazillion of them in the rest of the world within miles of each other. And what about all the American companies that thrive on low production cost products from places like China to sell here for an inflated price? I don't suppose that has a correlation to the incidence of low quality, unsafe merchandise. I'm also sure they care.

Just judging from the picture, that's about as low-key a Starbucks as I've ever seen.

My first thought was "Starbucks in the Forbidden City? WTF?" But, that picture makes me say "Why not? , if they're willing to tone down all the ads and icons"

Yes, remove the trinkets.

What will they do without their $8 cup of mediocre coffee?