What Is Behind the Rumored Moutai Liqueur Coffee Chocolate?

Luckin Coffee is rumored to be teaming up with Moutai again, this time for a "Year of the Dragon Sauce-Flavored Chocolate" expected to launch next week, according to tips circulating on social platforms and a Luckin store employee who spoke with East Finance. Ingredients reportedly include chocolate, sauce-flavored Moutai rich milk, milk, and coffee liquid, echoing the sauce-flavored latte that drew crowds last year.

Discussion online compares the product to liqueur coffee, and some netizens suspect it is a way to clear raw material inventory using an old recipe. Luckin has repeatedly released new drinks by adjusting existing formulas, a high-frequency strategy that still needs market testing. The original sauce-flavored latte, combining baijiu and coffee, remains on Luckin's ordering platform after strong first-day sales.

Last year, the sauce-flavored latte created by Luckin and Moutai in collaboration once set off a market frenzy and became an iconic co-branded product. Recently, word spread online that the two parties will collaborate again, with plans to launch a "Year of the Dragon Sauce-Flavored Chocolate." The new product's ingredients are quite similar to those of the sauce-flavored latte, sparking discussion among netizens about its taste and motives. Some believe this may be a routine move by the brand to clear raw material inventory using an old recipe. In fact, Luckin has repeatedly launched new products by slightly adjusting the formulas of existing drinks to maintain a high-frequency release schedule. Whether this strategy can continue to produce hit effects still needs to be tested by the market.

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Looking back at last year's cross-industry collaborations among major coffee brands, the sauce-flavored latte jointly created by Luckin and Moutai was undoubtedly the most talked-about phenomenal product. The strong alliance of two well-known brands, plus the unusual pairing of baijiu and coffee, led to overwhelming orders at many Luckin offline stores on the first day the sauce-flavored latte was launched.

Sauce-flavored Moutai immediately climbed onto the trending search list and became the focus of discussion among netizens. Many people at the time questioned whether the bold combination of "baijiu + coffee" would be hard to swallow, but Luckin, through actual sales and customer feedback, proved that the sauce-flavored latte had indeed been widely welcomed since its launch, and it is still available for consumers to purchase on Luckin's ordering platform.

Recently, news has again circulated on social platforms that Luckin will collaborate with Moutai once more. According to netizen tips, Luckin plans to launch "Year of the Dragon Sauce-Flavored Chocolate" next week. East Finance also sought confirmation from an employee at a Luckin store, who said that Moutai sauce-flavored chocolate will be listed next week, with ingredients including chocolate, sauce-flavored Moutai rich milk, milk, and coffee liquid.

Perhaps because the sauce-flavored latte serves as a reference, netizens have been speculating that this sauce-flavored chocolate will taste similar to liqueur chocolate, and they commented, "This will be sickeningly sweet," "Such a disgusting taste," "It really sounds as bad as imagined," "How malicious must this flavor be?"

Some netizens also noticed that the new product launched through this renewed collaboration between Luckin and Moutai is not very different in ingredients from the previous sauce-flavored latte, and therefore believe this is an inventory-clearing move by both parties, using the traffic previously accumulated by the sauce-flavored latte, a "faded internet celebrity," to carry out another round of marketing.

In fact, the practice of selling something as a new product after only slight formula adjustments is not uncommon at Luckin. For example, with the Chu Orange Latte launched earlier this year, some netizens pointed out that this drink was just the original base with some elements added and then packaged as a new product, with the aim of clearing rich milk inventory. The "Great Orange Great Luck Americano" launched a few days ago was the same, becoming a new product by adding direct drinking water to the orange crushed-ice americano.

As a chain brand, accumulating excess raw materials is common, and using existing materials for innovation is understandable. Netizens also said that this practice of adjusting the ingredient ratio of a certain drink and selling it as a new product is not unique to Luckin. Starbucks' previously launched "Roasted Sweet Potato Flavor Tea Latte" was a similar move.

For the brand, launching a product as new after slight adjustments to the original formula can both clear raw material inventory and maintain a certain frequency of new releases, keeping consumers continuously interested in the brand. Judging from Luckin over the past month, collaborations with Chu Orange, with Little Blue and His Friends, and with the 2024 Australian Open, plus the rumored upcoming collaboration with Moutai, mean that almost every week Luckin can give the "Luckin faithful" a reason to spend.

However, beverage development may not necessarily keep up with the pace of campaign updates. In order to maintain such a high-frequency activity rhythm, Luckin can only sell adjusted versions of original products as new items, using the method of "reheating leftovers" to maintain its release speed while firmly attracting consumers who pursue novelty.

Image source: Internet

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