What is coffee made of, and how far does food safety law reach?

On the last day of 2021, a woman in Hangzhou said she found an unfolded nail clipper in a Chabaidao drink, and the video quickly reached the trending searches. Netizens moved from sympathy to doubt after some showed the clipper could be slipped into a cup without breaking the sealed film. The merchant stayed silent, leaving the facts unclear.

Article 148 of the Food Safety Law allows tenfold compensation, which was written to protect consumers but has at times been used to press merchants for payouts. The same caution applies to any packaged drink, whether the question is what is coffee made of or what in coffee and tea products can end up in the cup. The case remains unresolved.

On the last day of 2021, a woman in Hangzhou found an unfolded nail clipper in a Chabaidao drink, and the video quickly shot to the top of trending searches. However, netizens' attitudes shifted from sympathy to skepticism—some people proved through experiments that a nail clipper can be inserted into a cup without damaging the sealed film. Article 148 of the Food Safety Law, with its tenfold compensation clause, was originally intended to protect consumers' rights, yet it has repeatedly been exploited by those with ulterior motives as a tool for profit. Behind the incident, the merchant responded with silence, and the truth became ever more elusive. This article sorts through the entire course of events, explores the boundaries and abuse of the compensation mechanism under the Food Safety Law, and includes related recommendations from Front Street Coffee.

New Year's Eve of course would not be complete without a cup of milk tea, since after 2021 you can no longer drink a beverage labeled with that year's date. A woman in Hangzhou had the same idea and ordered a cup of tea on the night of December 31, intending to bid farewell to the old year in this way. She was busy talking with someone at the time, and after the drink arrived she directly inserted a straw and drank, only after consuming more than half the cup did she suddenly notice that a nail clipper was lying in the cup. She immediately recorded a video, accused the drink shop, and posted it to a short-video platform, and within just a few hours it climbed onto the trending search list.

Because food safety incidents had frequently been exposed before, including cases caused by negligent corporate management as well as situations in which customers targeted Article 148 of the Food Safety Law and falsely accused merchants by deliberately placing foreign objects in order to demand tenfold compensation, netizens generally approached this kind of news with a cautious and skeptical mindset.

From the screenshots in the video, it can be observed that the nail clipper was soaking in the drink in an unfolded state, while the drink itself was semi-transparent. Logically speaking, whether looking carefully or even glancing casually, one should have been able to clearly identify the presence of the nail clipper. Precisely because of this, beneath the woman's first video, more than seventy percent of the comments took a skeptical stance.

In order to prove that she had not put it in herself, the woman posted a follow-up video on January 1. In the video she showed the sealed opening of the drink, and apart from the opening matching the thickness of the straw, the rest was completely intact. The nail clipper existed in the cup in an unfolded state, and by common sense, if the sealed film were not damaged again, it would be impossible to stuff the nail clipper in.

As a result, some netizens began to believe that the problem lay with the merchant, thinking it was unlikely that the woman had placed it there herself, and public opinion briefly turned toward the milk tea shop.

However, quite a few netizens remained calm and turned into detectives, carrying out a series of verifications. Many netizens said that after watching the video they immediately tried to see whether a nail clipper could be put into a cup without damaging the sealed film a second time, and the results proved it was possible.

Although the nail clipper appeared unfolded in the cup, as long as it was forcefully squeezed in the opposite direction when being inserted, it could be stuffed in without damaging the sealed film, and after falling into the cup it would return to its unfolded form. Faced with these experimental results, netizens quickly redirected their criticism toward the woman who posted the video.

Netizens also joked: doesn't this look like 1,000 yuan

In response to the matter, the milk tea shop neither responded nor accepted media interviews. From this reaction it can also be seen that the shop maintained the posture of standing upright and not fearing a crooked shadow. If it had accepted an interview, it might instead have made the incident ferment further. Still, some netizens hoped the shop would release the surveillance footage from when the drink was made, so that those who intentionally spread rumors would have nothing to say.

The Food Safety Law was originally meant to protect consumers' rights, yet it has been used by people with ulterior motives as a tool for making money... When exactly will there be laws to restrain these ill-intentioned people?

As a brand deeply engaged in the coffee field, Front Street Coffee has always paid attention to food safety and honest operation in the beverage industry, reminding consumers to defend their rights rationally while also calling on merchants to strengthen internal management.

Image source: Internet, video screenshot

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