cheriegal

My friend and I are off for 21 days in China in a few weeks and I'm wondering if it's easy to find wine at dinner in restaurants or to buy in shops. Is it expensive there? Also - do they have coffee and diet drinks? Thanks

keldar

We have lived in China since 2004 and yes you can buy Chinese wine in any restaurant. Western Restaurants will carry French, Chilean, Australian, Spanish and Italian wines.Wine is cheap. Diet coke is now becoming available in some restaurants. Most people drink tea which is always free with your meal.Coffe is usually only served in Hotel or Western Restaurants and tends to cost about $4 per cup.
Hope this helps

petitepois

I'm sorry to disagree, but having lived in Beijing for four years (one of China's most modern cities and thus one of the cities with the most Western products) I can tell you that A. Wine might be available, in restauraants that cater to foreigners, and for a price, B. Diet coke is available, but not always, C. TEA IS GENERALLY NOT FREE -- I'd say 50/50 percent of the time, C. Coffee is not a big thing, available 20% of the time

OJudy

Although I've never been fortunate enough to live in China, I have been there several times as a tourist. So here's my two cents -- although we usually drink wine with our meals at home, in China we drank beer. Much easier to order "liang bei pijiu" than to sort through the wine list in Chinese. As far as coffee, it seemed like it was usually instant Nescafe, and I couldn't really tell if it was coffee or chocolate by the taste. Of course, there is always Starbucks if you want the real thing. Sorry I can't help with the diet soda. No matter what, I'm sure you'll have an enjoyable trip!

nagiffag

In Shanghai we've found wine to be pretty expensive. We imported some legally in 2004 and the duty was over US$25/bottle - which was many times more than we purchased it for in France. (Lots of things aren't imported legally here so this isn't always a consideration.) I'd say it's not unusual to see wines are marked up 300-400% in Shanghai. In XinTianDi a business associate ordered a wine without looking at the price and was shocked to pay $60USD for a Californian wine that's usually $15-20. You could always order "Great Wall" wine instead. Hee hee!

We find Diet Coke to be fairly available in Shanghai. Diet Coke can be purchased at convenience stores for maybe 3rmb. Carrefour grocery store is 2.1rmb. Go to a western restaurant and sodas could be up to 40rmb whereas we've found Chinese restaurants are usually 6-12rmb. Diet COLA is pronounced sthing like "Gee an Yee Cuh-la". You theoretically could receive diet pepsi, but usually diet coke as you don't see many Pepsi products here. Regular Coke ("Cuh-La"-meaning cola), Sprite ("shway-bee&quotand Fanta (~"Fun-Dah&quot are other sodas typically available on menus whether chinese or western. Diet coke wasn't available at Meilongzhen yesterday so we had Sprite.

I've actually not even tried to order coffee at a chinese restaurant that doesn't cater to westerners - first because I'm too full and second due to low expectations. I'd personally make a separate stop at a coffee shop. There are Chinese chains in addition to Starbucks and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

albaaust

We like our red wine..the restaurants we went to did not offer wine only beer. We bought bottles of wine at local supermarkets at major shopping centres.The Chinese wine was OK. Mostly we stuck to Australian red which we knew..around A$25.

keldar

Well I guess I'm lucky to live in Xiamen, Fujian Province. The Chinese people in this city love wine and we have no problem ordering wine in a restaurant ( Chinese wine ) for approx 80 rmb a bottle. And since fujian is the tea capital of China, Tea is always free ( unlimited in fact ) also black tea lipton's is also available free.I am speaking for the southern provinces and cannot speak for beijing or the north. So it depends on the provinces you visit.