Starbucks has announced its large-scale plan of opening a 30,000 square foot establishment in China, specifically Shanghai with the assistance of Chinese technology company, Alibaba Group. This would be their biggest Roastery in existence; however, there is more to the Shanghai Roastery than meets the eye.

While this Roastery contains Starbucks’s longest coffee bar in the world with a two-story coffee roasting cask, a Starbucks exclusive Princi bakery and a 3-D printed tea bar, there are also more features that make it stand out. This location will be the first of Starbucks’ 27,000 locations worldwide to simultaneously utilize real-time, in-store and online customer experience. This is made possible because of Alibaba Group’s Mobile Taobao app in combination with the company’s augmented-reality (AR) technology.

The augmented-reality app Alibaba Group has developed immediately begins its functionality as soon as the customer walks into the store due to location-based technology. They will see a special webpage that contains a multitude of features, and among these are a detailed map of the floors, menus of the different coffees and teas and other informational resources. This app ultimately allows customers to scan key features around the Roastery and get details about the coffee bars, brewing methods and roasting processes through visuals and animations. The more the customer engages with the Roastery, the more custom Roastery-themed photo filters they are able to receive.

According to Starbucks, China is their fastest-growing market, making it a key driver of economic growth as there are 3,000 stores in 136 cities, and 600 are in Shanghai. The new high-tech Shanghai Roastery officially opens on December 6th.