Why the Luckin Mulled Wine Americano tastes so divisive

Luckin Coffee's re-released Mulled Wine Americano has drawn sharply divided reviews. Some customers describe the red wine and coffee combination as weak on coffee flavor with a strong sour, unpleasant smell, comparing it to cafeteria food waste. Others say they enjoy the rich flavor pairing. Store employees, facing a wave of complaints, handwrote notes asking customers not to leave bad reviews easily.

The handwritten notes read that the drink has a unique taste, should be ordered with caution, and cannot be made iced. The episode has stirred debate about the brand's review system and what store staff should handle. To some drinkers, the sour, fermented notes make the coffee taste like soy sauce, which is why reactions split so sharply.

Luckin Coffee's recently re-released Mulled Wine Americano has sparked widespread discussion. This new product combining red wine flavor with coffee has polarized reviews due to its unique taste. Some consumers shared "avoid at all costs" experiences on social media, describing the taste as unbearable; meanwhile, other customers expressed love for this rich flavor combination. Due to the excessive negative reviews, some store employees handwrote notes begging customers not to leave bad reviews so easily, triggering online discussions about the brand's review system and store responsibilities. This article will sort out the whole incident, consumer feedback, and the controversy surrounding the review mechanism.

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Has anyone bought and tried Luckin Coffee's recently re-released Mulled Wine Americano?

Not long ago, a photo casually taken by a passerby quickly spread online. In the photo, two notes read respectively: "The Mulled Wine Americano has a unique taste, please order with caution, it can't be made iced," and "Even if it tastes bad, please don't give a bad review, thank you everyone." These two notes, both amusing and somewhat heartbreaking, attracted a large crowd of onlookers, and consumers who had purchased the Mulled Wine Americano also joined the discussion.

The reason Luckin store employees resorted to this desperate measure was truly out of helplessness—this new product received far too many negative reviews within just a few days. A casual search on Xiaohongshu shows "avoid at all costs," "complaints," and "bad reviews" content about the Mulled Wine Americano everywhere. For a time, stores frequently received complaints, and employees had to tear themselves away from their busiest moments to handle after-sales issues, utterly exhausted.

The main point consumers complained about was the taste of the Mulled Wine Americano. The "red wine + coffee" combination is not something everyone can accept. One customer who tried it described it this way: "The coffee taste is very weak... mixed with a strong sour and foul smell, especially like the sour smell from the place where leftover food is dumped in a cafeteria, yuck..." "The aftertaste of the two things mixed together smells just like the feeling of first smelling the real thing, as if drinking swill..."

Just as written on that white note by the Luckin employee, this drink has a very unique taste. Those who like it will love it very much, while those who don't will taste all kinds of strange flavors: dish soap, moldy red dates and spoiled lemons, burp smell, rotten oranges plus soy sauce... They say a thousand readers see a thousand Hamlets, but who would have thought a thousand customers could also taste a thousand different cups of Mulled Wine Americano!

According to Luckin's official introduction, the Mulled Wine Americano contains mulled wine flavor syrup and orange juice equivalent to about one orange. Sharp-eyed netizens immediately noticed—isn't this just the long-discontinued Orange C Americano plus red wine? Thus another voice emerged: It's delicious! "Nine out of ten people who like Orange C will like this, because it's hot, so the flavor is richer than Orange C."

Some hate it, some love it, but a Luckin employee said that after some consumers who didn't like it left bad reviews for the store, relevant personnel from top to bottom at the store could all be implicated. Therefore, netizens were puzzled by the idea of "giving a bad review just because it doesn't suit your taste." Even after receiving a large number of bad reviews, stores cannot arbitrarily change the product formula. "It's clearly a formula set by the company, yet the store has to bear the bad reviews..."

Some netizens also pointed out that stores being "collaterally damaged" by bad reviews is Luckin's own problem, and consumers' opportunities to express their opinions should not be restricted because of the company's management issues. "Every grievance has its debtor." Luckin should consider splitting the review system into two dimensions: product development and store service. If the product rating is low, go to the R&D department; if the service rating is low, go to the store. Personnel in the two systems should each bear their own responsibility without mutual implication, so that feedback can be collected more precisely.

Currently, the Mulled Wine Americano has roughly equal numbers of positive and negative reviews, truly "everyone has their own taste." But regardless, I sincerely hope Luckin store staff will not be affected because of the new product's unique taste. Show some love for the Luckin workers~~

Image source: Internet

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