That's what basically happened today. First the Germans came for coffee but decided to move on to the wine at 2PM. I guess its Friday and most people are out about thinking about the evening - what shall we do this evening? Hmm...

So far, the evening is good - good weather with nice passing traffic. An Aussie couple dropped by when they saw the DownUnder signage from the Pearl Oriental Tower. Yep, you can see us from way up the tower - its the orange umbrellas at the front of SuperBrand Mall.

Drop by and let us entertain you Friday night and weekend revellers. We're off to De La Coast at 11PM to see a friend who so happens to be the Manager as well. De La Coast is a nice rather intimate club lounge with great live music - Latin and Brazilian.

Now what has all this got to do with the Crazy Koala Afternoon? Its our Special for the after 4PM crowd - a bottle of Taltarni Fiddleback Red for 225 RMB plus a free cheese platter. Can't get better than that in the late afternoon, can we?

850
Discovery of coffee berries by lengedary goat herder Kaldi of Ethiopia.

1100
Commercial coffee plantations on the Arabian peninsula.

1475
The world’s first coffee house in Constantinople.

1600
Coffee enters Europe through the port of Venice.

1652
The first coffeehouse in London by prominent Levant merchants.

1672
The first coffeehouse in Paris.

1683
The first coffeehouse in Vienna.

1688
Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse opens, which eventually led to Lloyd’s of London.

1690
The Dutch became the first to cultivate coffee commercially in the East Indies.

1720
Italy’s coffeehouse Caffe Florian opens and still exists today.

1721
The first coffeehouse opens in Berlin.

1723
Stolen coffee plant arrived in the West Indies, home of Jamacian Blue Mountain.

1727
The Brazilian coffee industry starts from seedlings smuggled out of Paris.

1773
The Boston Tea Party that started the American Revolution was planned in a coffeehouse, the Green Dragon.

The Continental Congress declared coffee the national beverage of the new nation of the United States.

1880
First coffee plantations in Australia.

1890
A French priest successfully raised coffee plants in a valley in Yunnan Province, China.

1905
The first commercial espresso machine is manufactured in Italy.

1908
The invention of the worlds first drip coffeemaker by Melitta.

1930
Western restaurants and cafes mushroomed in Shanghai that nurtured the city’s first generation of coffee lovers.

1933
Illy develops the first automatic espresso machine.

1945
Gaggia perfects the espresso machine with a piston that creates a high pressure extraction to produce a thick layer of crema.

1963
International Coffee Organisation was formed to regulate coffee prices.

1995
More than 400 billion cups are consumed each year.

2006
Australia’s DownUnder Coffee opens in Shanghai!