Starbucks 'toilet water' coffee prompts anger in Hong Kong

Telegraph UK ^ | May 30, 2013

[grundle]

The coffee shop, in the famous Bank of China Tower, has been using the water from a tap in a lavatory to make beverages since its opening in October 2011.

Images from local newspaper Apple Daily showed the tap with a sign that said "Starbucks only" a few feet away from a urinal in the dingy washroom, which the paper said was in the building's car park.

"There is no direct water supply to that particular store, that's why we need to obtain the drinking water from the nearest source in the building," Starbucks spokeswoman Wendy Pang said.

"The issue that is more worrying is ... the potential risk of transferring pathogens from the restroom environment into the Starbucks food preparation area," Hong Kong University School of Public Health associate professor Benjamin Cowling said.

"I wouldn't go to the restaurant in the first place if I knew they were having potentially risky hygiene practices," Cowling said.

[BCW]

Adapt and overcome!

[Conspiracy Guy]

Starbucks coffee tastes like poop anyway. This may explain it.

[rickmichaels]

[Tigerized]

Oh, no!

Bathroom water!! Much different than kitchen water!!!

[goron]

[AlexW]

I think I saw a Starpukes shop in the Hong Kong airport.
I was not interested.

[faithhopecharity]

Starbucks patrons are lucky to get any taste at all...

[Carriage Hill]

Do you remember the old “All In The Family” episode when Meathead tried to explain to Archie that sink and “ter-let” water was all from the same source? Hilarious! I can’t find the YT video.

[Venturer]

I didn’t realize that Hong Kong had a shortage of pipe.

Any half assed plumber could solve this in an hour.

[PowderMonkey]

Calls to mind my visit to an very nice restaurant in West Africa. Very nice until I observed how the staff washed the tableware by using storm drain runoff at curbside in the street. No dishwashing soap. They then dried it, polishing it shiny new by using rags plucked from the trash heap...”Cheque, please!”

[jsanders2001]

Sir, there’s a .....what the hell?!...in my coffee!!

[PowderMonkey]

[autumnraine]

I remember that episode. The Seinfeld episode of shower toiket water (peeing in the shower) argument reminded me of it too.

[autumnraine]

This is the convincing argument that plumbing is the known invention. Ever.

[dalereed]

Toilet water would be an improvement compared to Starbucks coffee!!!

[Tigerized]

I was looking for the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin demands his mother bring him a drink of water in the middle of the night, then refuses to drink it.

“That’s bathroom water, not kitchen water!”