Somebody Made a Forest-Themed Café in Jing'an

By Betty Richardson

Been on Sha'anxi Nan Lu recently? You may have walked past a doorway that looked like this:

Upstairs is a café called 'Encounter' with a forest theme inside, set over three floors of a lane house. A veritable woodland of plastic Taobao trees, moss, ferns, shrubs and flowers.

There's even a tiny stream! With real tiny fish in it!

The sylvan fun continues upstairs on the second floor, decked with a comparatively sombre 'hedgerow library' theme and some stools on which to sit and discuss forestly goings-on.

On the third floor, there's a god damn treehouse. It's pretty dark in there so we only managed to snap a few from the bottom, but inside is room for four people. Ideal for you inner city kids who never got a tree house in your backyard, only now you get to drink RMB23 Tsingdaos inside it and make out without your parents giving a shit.

Now for the downside. The coffee slightly sucks compared to other trendy cafes like Paras, Aunn and Sumerian. But then again, it's also cheaper than a lot of places. Like RMB28 for a cappucino cheap, so basically Starbucks prices.

They also have fruit juice for around the same price, and pleasingly cheap beer from RMB23-28. Next happy hour spot?

Price: RMB23-50 per person
Who's going: not many people (yet)
Good for: coffee, juice, hang out spots, dessert, beer, cocktails

Encounter Forest Café, 2F, 148 Shanxi Nan Lu, by Changle Lu.

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