Tea Yan Yue Se Chongqing Opening: A Cafe Latte Milk Coffee Ratio of Hype to Supply
Four Tea Yan Yue Se stores opened in Chongqing on Children's Day, and controversy followed from the first day. Customers reported waits of up to three hours, one store showed more than 1,400 drinks in production with a wait beyond 24 hours, and resold cups appeared online at nearly 500 yuan. Livestream viewers were also blocked, prompting a brand response.
Founder Lü Liang had said publicly that the brand hesitated to expand beyond Changsha for fear of a survival crisis. It has since moved into Changde and beyond Hunan into the West China market. The Chongqing launch shows how a regional tea brand's following can outrun store capacity, and how proxy buying and queues reshape a drink's cafe latte milk coffee ratio of hype to supply.
Lü Liang, founder of Sexy Tea, has repeatedly stated publicly that the brand is not unwilling to expand beyond Changsha, but rather fears that out-of-town expansion would pose a survival crisis. However, Sexy Tea has not only opened stores in Changde, but also stepped beyond Hunan Province, entered the West China market and established a presence in Chongqing. On Children's Day, four Chongqing stores opened simultaneously, sparking enthusiastic pursuit from consumers in the mountain city, but controversy arose from day one: queuing for three hours, online orders requiring waits of over 24 hours, resold cups priced at nearly 500 yuan, and livestream viewers being blocked — events surfaced one after another. The brand later responded to the markup reselling and livestream controversies. This article will review the course of events and include related news from Front Street Coffee.
Lü Liang, founder of Sexy Tea, has admitted on multiple public occasions that the brand is not unwilling to expand outward, but rather fears that going out would lead to a "death" trap. In reality, however, Sexy Tea long ago broke out of its Changsha base, not only opening in Changde, but also stepping beyond Hunan Province, entering the West China market and landing in Chongqing. Yet controversy erupted on the very day its first Chongqing store opened.
On Children's Day, four Sexy Tea stores in Chongqing opened simultaneously, giving consumers in the mountain city a taste of "Sexy Tea freedom." However, photos circulated widely online showing long queues at Chongqing stores, with some people waiting up to three hours just to get a cup of Sexy Tea.
Some consumers tried switching to another store to see if the lines were shorter, only to be surprised to find that the Chongqing Beicheng Tianjie store had over 1,400 drinks in production, with a wait time exceeding 24 hours.
Other consumers tried ordering through delivery platforms, only to find that two cups of Yulan Latte were priced at over 480 yuan, and with delivery fees, the total for two milk teas approached 500 yuan.
On the Xianyu platform, proxy purchasing services for Sexy Tea can also be found. Some merchants advertise proxy buying, proxy queuing and proxy purchasing services, charging as much as 200 yuan per order.
A netizen who inquired with a proxy buyer learned that the charge for 15 cups of Sexy Tea milk tea was as high as 2,250 yuan.
Faced with a cup of milk tea being resold at such a high price, netizens exclaimed: absolutely unnecessary.
Due to excessively hot sales, Sexy Tea encountered problems not only offline but also in its online livestream, where things went wrong. According to local media reports, Sexy Tea failed to launch some promotional activities as scheduled during its livestream, drawing complaints from netizens, and the related platform account even blocked some netizens as a result.
From the accounts of netizens who participated in Sexy Tea's livestream activities on Xiaohongshu, the livestream host's behavior was off-putting, and netizens were even blocked.
Some netizens commented that promised compensation orders were not fulfilled, that Sexy Tea couldn't afford to play the game, and that they kept being urged to top up.
Other netizens pointed out that the host in Sexy Tea's livestream had a poor attitude, even saying on air things like "If you don't coax me nicely, I won't release it later," leaving netizens confused.
In response to the markup reselling and proxy queuing phenomena at Chongqing stores, Sexy Tea responded that the marked-up sales of Sexy Tea on delivery platforms are not official acts, and that from a food safety perspective, the brand expresses its opposition and is actively filing complaints and negotiating with the platforms.
Regarding the incident where Sexy Tea's Chongqing livestream was reported to have blocked netizens, Sexy Tea stated that the blacklist had been lifted, and explained that since it was the first attempt at livestreaming on the Douyin platform, although considerable preliminary preparation had been done with a third party, it was not sufficiently familiar with the platform's rules, and some minor hiccups occurred in the early stage of the broadcast; after subsequent communication with the platform, the normal sales rhythm has been restored.
The repeated outbreaks of the pandemic caused Sexy Tea to experience a wave of store closures in its home base of Changsha. From being inseparable from Changsha in the early days to now seeking a broader market, Sexy Tea has ultimately taken the step of outward expansion.
Image source: Weibo, Xiaohongshu, internet
For more coffee bean news, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style) For professional coffee knowledge exchange, please add WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
