Is coffee a beverage? Raw crab milk tea raises the question

A short video of a blogger dipping raw marinated hairy crab into milk tea cream spread quickly on Chinese social platforms around September 30, drawing 414,000 views by 21:15 that day. The milk tea shop confirmed it never sold the item and that the blogger brought the crab for a staged shoot. Experts warned against copying it, saying frozen milk tea plus raw crab doubly irritates the stomach and intestines.

Commenters called it a parasite set meal and a double diarrhea formula, and some suspected the shop was seeking attention. The episode reflects frequent cross-border innovation in the new tea beverage industry, and shows where novelty loses its boundaries once food safety is involved. Coffee, plainly, is a beverage; this drink was neither coffee nor a safe one.

Recently, a short video of eating raw marinated hairy crab dipped in milk tea cream spread rapidly on social platforms, sparking widespread discussion. In the video, a blogger tasted this self-created drink at a trendy milk tea shop, but it was later confirmed that the blogger brought the crab themselves for a staged shot, and the shop did not sell this product. Netizens had mixed opinions on this behavior, while experts clearly reminded the public not to imitate it, as drinking frozen milk tea together with raw crab will doubly irritate the stomach and intestines, and misleading the public for traffic is extremely inadvisable. This incident also reflects the current situation of frequent cross-border innovation in the new tea beverage industry, but if innovation loses its boundaries, especially when food safety is involved, it is worth deep reflection.

On September 30, a short video about "raw marinated hairy crab milk tea" attracted a great deal of attention on social platforms.

Hairy crab can actually be paired with milk tea???

Here is how the incident unfolded:

According to a report on the Weibo account of "Jimu News," a short-video blogger posted a video online of themselves trying "raw marinated hairy crab milk tea" at a trendy milk tea shop. In the footage, the blogger dipped the raw crab into the cream on top of the milk tea and then ate it in one bite.

This video quickly went viral on social platforms, was reposted by many netizens, and triggered heated discussion.

Data shows that after the video was posted, as of 21:15 that day (the 30th), related views had reached 414,000.

Many netizens left comments complaining:

"I'm gonna puke."

"Food can be down-to-earth, but it shouldn't be underworld."

"A double diarrhea formula."

"Crab is cold in nature, and then paired with iced milk tea—do you think your life is too long?"

"A parasite set meal."

"Drinking this will probably give you diarrhea for a week, maybe even longer~"

Some netizens also questioned: "This is a certain milk tea shop seeking attention," and some pointed out, "The shop doesn't sell this milk tea at all; the blogger staged it themselves."

As the incident continued to escalate, a reporter from "Jimu News" contacted the milk tea shop, and the other party said the shop had never sold this "raw marinated hairy crab milk tea," and the video content should have been a "topping" performance by the blogger who brought the crab to the shop themselves.

This... the blogger's behavior is indeed hard to understand.

Regarding this matter, "Jimu News" also mentioned in its report: experts advise the public not to imitate this kind of behavior, "Iced milk tea paired with raw crab will multiply the irritation to the stomach and intestines. Misleading the public like this just to gain clicks is truly unacceptable."

In fact, in recent years the new tea beverage industry has been extremely hot, and a single type of product can no longer easily satisfy consumers' needs. Many beverage brands have therefore continuously tried to break product boundaries, innovate, and create many novel products.

Among these, cross-border combinations are one of the innovative methods, such as combining two seemingly unrelated products, like the previous examples of adding Moutai to coffee or adding fermented grain brine to coffee.

Obviously, at present, beverage innovation has become an indispensable development trend, and the practice of mixing and matching unrelated products to innovate has also become one of the ways to innovate beverages.

What is worth deeper thought is that product innovation itself is a normal development trend, but if innovation has no boundaries, or is done merely to grab public attention, then such innovation would be better abandoned, especially innovation related to food safety. After all, whether for businesses or consumers, food safety is crucial.

Finally.

Regardless of whether the above blogger did it to attract attention or for any other reason, shooting such a video is indeed very likely to mislead the public. For bloggers, traffic is certainly important, but if they really do things that mislead the public just to attract attention, in the end they can only end up losing out twice over.

*Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.