Anonymous User
May 4, 2025
As a demonstration resort jointly developed by the Shanghai-Yunnan Poverty Alleviation and Starbucks Foundation, the facilities were OK for the few days we stayed there. Five stars for the environment, hotel front desk service and coffee course experience. The teachers were very responsible.
I give a 0.5-star negative review to this poverty alleviation project for villagers. If you want to experience projects including but not limited to windy farms and flower cake making, I hope the following real experience can serve as a reference for everyone, and decide whether to participate after careful consideration and evaluation.
1. In addition to coffee courses, other projects including the farm stay packages at Youfeng Farm are contracted by villagers or outsiders. Before participating, be sure to confirm in advance the price (hidden price + may be inconsistent with the front desk), the experience service content, and what you can take away after the experience.
-Reason: The prices of various project experiences are inflated. For example, a handmade flower cake costs 9 yuan (it is not delicious, the flower sauce is made in advance), but it costs 118 to make it yourself. The experience does not include filling making experience and dough making process guidance, only picking 5 flowers + wrapping pancakes.
And with the limited raw materials provided, no matter how many are made in the end, you can only take away 4 by paying 118. The boss will even argue, "You can only take away the ugliest four. It cannot affect the sale of the rest." The way the boss looks at you during the argument is hard to describe, as if we are trying to take advantage of her. We gave us this flower cake, and we all thought it was a waste of calories and tasted so bad...
I can only say that this is a very unfair project with no experience value.
2. To book any experience project, please book directly with the front desk and confirm the price.
-Reason: You go to Youfeng Farm one day in advance and verbally book lunch for the next day with the boss. However, the chef will ask you to cancel the reservation starting from 8:30 in the morning because he has to entertain a "distinguished guest". When we arrived at the scene, we found out that this was the reason. The chef-owner showed no intention of taking the initiative to resolve the issue or apologize, and only had eyes for the so-called "distinguished guest". It seemed as if he had completely forgotten that it was he who strongly recommended that we book this lunch set the night before.
3. The front desk staff did not agree on the pricing of Feng Farm and the chef owner.
-Reason: The front desk set the steak grill price at 298/set, while the chef's price is 298/person. There have even been cases where chefs have charged customers directly according to their own prices. We don’t know how many times this has happened.
4. The hotel operator was very proactive in dealing with the above issues, which is highly commendable, but the villagers were unwilling to cooperate.
-Reason: When the flower cake owner received the appeal feedback, he came over with flower cakes to apologize with "full sincerity" the previous second (we didn't want them, but he forced them on us). The next second, when they heard that we asked the hotel for a refund for the service, they immediately changed their attitude and took back the flower cakes that they had forced on us.
I really will not accept any apology from this boss anymore. If he is so unwilling, why bother to act out the above scene? The refund was also a false one. They were unwilling to let us negotiate with the front desk about a public refund and made a false personal refund privately.
In summary, it can be seen that the hotel operators and investment managers are trying hard to help local villagers get rich and promote local cultural tourism. However, the surrounding villagers' experience of the project really lost their favor.
Poverty alleviation should not be done by taking money from other places and sponsoring villagers like suckers. We come here for vacation and can't get into any good mood, but we are still asked to understand their moral kidnapping. What’s more, the two restaurants mentioned above are not from Pu’er. One chef owner is from Meizhou, Guangdong, and the other is from Dali.
I hope the hotel operators can pay attention to this and strengthen the screening of surrounding cooperation projects. We also hope that the above content can be given to every customer who wants to come to Kagu for the experience, so that they don’t spend money and end up feeling angry like us.
Original TextTranslation provided by Google