Why is Saturnbird moving into specialty coffee liquid?

Saturnbird, the freeze-dried coffee brand, has launched its first specialty espresso coffee liquid, entering a crowded ready-to-drink segment. The line has two versions: a light roast Americano style with fruitier acidity from raisin honey and natural processed blends, and a dark roast latte style with washed and anaerobic natural beans for heavier bitterness.

Founded in April 2015 by Wu Jun, Saturnbird built its reputation on small-can packaging, a digital grading system, and oversight by a CQI-certified coffee quality grader. It opened a Shanghai concept store in 2021. Yongpu, Sumida River, Seesaw, and Nestlé already compete in coffee liquid, so the launch tests whether that following carries over.

Saturnbird, known for its freeze-dried coffee, recently launched the brand's first specialty espresso coffee liquid, officially entering the increasingly competitive coffee liquid track. The new products are divided into two types: a light roast Americano style and a dark roast latte style, each using blended beans with different processing methods, with different emphases in flavor presentation. Since its founding in 2015, Saturnbird has quickly gained popularity with its highly recognizable small can design and digital grading system, and in 2021 it also opened an offline concept store in Shanghai. However, in the coffee liquid field, brands such as Yongpu, Sumida River, and Seesaw have already laid out their plans first, and giants like Nestlé have also entered the market one after another. Whether Saturnbird's expansion of its product line this time can once again break through in the convenient coffee market is worth coffee lovers' continued attention.

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Anyone who pays even a little attention to coffee has probably heard of the brand Saturnbird. Whether at the office or at home, when coffee is temporarily unavailable for purchase or delivery, many people rely on it for a quick pick-me-up.

Recently, Saturnbird launched something new — specialty espresso coffee liquid, which has now officially gone on sale. According to the official description, the black-packaged version follows a light roast Americano approach, with the blended beans undergoing raisin honey processing and natural processing respectively, giving it a more pronounced fruity acidity; the white-packaged version is oriented toward dark roast latte, with the blended beans using washed and anaerobic natural processing methods, resulting in a heavier overall bitterness.

In terms of appearance, this new product seems to be made more exquisitely, with a small capsule-like package that balances portability without losing a sense of refinement.

According to public information, Saturnbird was founded in April 2015, and the founder is Wu Jun. The brand's quality control is overseen by a CQI-certified coffee quality grader, focusing on the specialty coffee route. By building and expanding specialty coffee drinking scenarios, it hopes to bring specialty coffee to a broader audience. It owns the SATURNBIRD COFFEE brand.

Before this, Saturnbird's product focus had always been on freeze-dried coffee, while the company's business also covered a complete industry chain including coffee beans and coffee grounds. Completely different from the plastic bag packaging of ordinary instant coffee, Saturnbird chose brightly colored small cans and used numbers to distinguish roast levels, from 0 to 7, with larger numbers meaning darker roasts. This is both attractive and instantly memorable.

Strictly speaking, freeze-dried coffee is not anything new, but its sudden rise in the Chinese market owes much to Saturnbird.

The specialty espresso coffee liquid launched this time is Saturnbird's first foray into this category, and how the market responds afterward will still have to be answered by time.

In 2021, Saturnbird opened the brand's first physical store on Anfu Road in Xuhui District, Shanghai. This store was positioned as the "into the force concept store," extending Saturnbird's longstanding planet culture. The entrance retains exposed beams, the walls are made of concrete, and the tables and chairs use wood panels. Rugged yet with a touch of refinement, the overall atmosphere evokes an unfinished space base, also echoing the theme of "into the force."

In fact, even earlier, Yongpu Coffee had already made a name for itself online with its pioneering "cold brew coffee liquid" and had also secured the top spot in Tmall's coffee liquid sales rankings.

Although the market is already flooded with various conveniently packaged coffee products, such as instant coffee, coffee liquid is a concentrated liquid preserved after extraction and processing, and this form has advantages that are hard for other things to replace.

For example, you can certainly use a drip bag to brew a cup of coffee and then add milk to make a latte, which is the same principle as adding milk to an Americano. But if you use coffee liquid instead, it is equivalent to espresso plus milk, and what you drink is a true latte in the real sense.

In recent years, brands have successively begun betting on the coffee liquid track. Sumida River, Seesaw, Colin, and Jiyin have launched coffee liquid products one after another, and even packaging retail coffee giants like Nestlé have introduced their own coffee liquid.

Along with the continuous upgrading of coffee consumption, compared with lining up in a café for a cup of coffee, more and more coffee lovers are willing to do it themselves and use a coffee machine to extract coffee beans into coffee liquid. However, making a cup of coffee with a coffee machine takes about 30 seconds, and including steps like grinding beans, it takes at least 2 minutes, which is still not very appealing for people rushing to work or the "lazy cancer" crowd.

At present, new forms of coffee products are emerging endlessly and are constantly changing consumers' drinking habits, and the options for coffee liquid are becoming more and more numerous. After all, coffee liquid, which is convenient and easy to use, can restore coffee flavor, and can be stored for a long time, is indeed a priority choice when stocking up.

Image source: Internet

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