How Does a Quicksand Americano Become a Viral Hit?

Creative drinks such as Saturn Coffee, waterfall Americano, quicksand iced Americano, lazy iced coffee and 400 Times Coffee spread first as homemade coffee videos, then landed on cafe menus. They demand little technique but rely on strong visuals, so the drink catches the eye before it reaches the palate.

On Weibo, homemade drinks topics have been read over 100 million times, and Xiaohongshu notes on homemade coffee approach 600,000. Students use coffee liquid, freeze-dried powder, convenience store drinks and syrups to cut costs. Flavor still trails professional cafes, yet the cafe americano ratio no longer looks intimidating to make at home.

The internet has allowed video tutorials to spread rapidly, and has also helped a wave of viral hit coffees stand out from "homemade coffee." Creative drinks such as Saturn Coffee, waterfall Americano, quicksand iced Americano, and 400 Times Coffee became popular as netizens spontaneously recreated and shared them, and were subsequently adopted by many cafés. These kinds of coffee often do not rely on a high technical threshold, but place particular emphasis on visual presentation, grabbing the eye first before winning over the palate. Post-00s students have taken homemade coffee to yet another level, using coffee liquid and freeze-dried powder with convenience store drinks and syrups to achieve low-cost coffee freedom in their dormitories. Against the backdrop of the pandemic and rising prices, the cost-effectiveness of homemade coffee has become more prominent. Although there is still a gap in flavor compared with professional cafés, it also confirms that coffee is accelerating its integration into daily life.

The rapid development of the internet has enabled many young people to share video tutorials through online platforms. Quite interestingly, some of today's popular viral hit coffees first became famous precisely through the form of "homemade coffee."

On multiple popular social platforms, "homemade drinks" and "homemade coffee" have long ranked among the hot search terms. On Weibo, for example, topics related to "homemade drinks" have already been read over 100 million times; on Xiaohongshu, shared notes on "homemade coffee" have approached nearly 600,000.

A series of creative coffee drinks, including Saturn Coffee, waterfall Americano, quicksand iced Americano, lazy iced coffee, and 400 Times Coffee, have been spontaneously recreated and spread by netizens, with some even becoming viral online hits, and were later introduced onto the menus of more and more cafés.

However, if you look carefully at these viral coffees, you will find that creating a homemade viral coffee does not require too high a technical threshold, and they also share something in common: before conquering the taste buds, they first let the eyes enjoy a feast.

Saturn Coffee, waterfall Americano, and lazy iced coffee are enough to make drinkers fall in love at first sight simply through the dynamic visuals produced when solids and liquids blend; quicksand iced Americano, with its visual effect like pouring quicksand, attracts a large number of coffee lovers to compete in recreating the challenge.

The old habit of "when eating out, the phone eats first" has long had a profound influence on some coffee lovers. After all, if it looks this outstanding, the taste should not disappoint either.

Among the many netizens, the post-00s generation has elevated the ways of playing with homemade coffee to a new level.

In the homemade coffee shared by many bloggers, coffee liquid or freeze-dried powder is almost always used as the coffee base, and then various drinks commonly found in convenience stores are poured into the cup, such as milk, juice, tea drinks, soda, and so on; then a few bottles of commonly used flavor syrups are prepared, and caramel latte, sparkling Americano, and the like can all be easily made. Finally, custom stickers are placed on a transparent takeaway cup, creating the illusion that you have really "opened your own coffee shop."

Given the limited conditions in dormitories, this kind of homemade coffee has become the main source for many students to satisfy their coffee needs. Many post-00s students are highly action-oriented, and some have even opened a "coffee shop" in their dormitory and shared their business insights unreservedly on Xiaohongshu. It should be noted that Coffee Workshop does not recommend that students open coffee shops in dormitories, nor does it encourage money transactions.

As the pandemic repeatedly fluctuated, consumers' ability to visit offline cafés was hindered, leaving them to solve this need on their own, which in turn gave homemade coffee some room to grow. At the same time, coffee prices continued to rise, and for coffee-addicted workers, homemade coffee, which allows them to achieve coffee freedom at low cost, is extremely attractive.

There is no doubt that homemade coffee is highly cost-effective. However, from the perspective of flavor and mouthfeel, and in terms of ingredients, equipment, and technique alone, café products have long far surpassed homemade coffee. But the popularity of homemade coffee also shows that coffee has taken another step forward on the road to becoming part of daily life.

Image source: internet

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

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