How Does the Luckin Coffee Pumpkin Oat Latte Taste?

Luckin Coffee launched a Halloween-exclusive Pumpkin Oat Latte in collaboration with Pingu, and consumer reaction split quickly. Some found the pumpkin aroma rich and true to the holiday theme, while others said it tasted like sweet, sticky pumpkin porridge, joking that a roujiamo would complete the breakfast.

The recipe follows Luckin's earlier flavored lattes, with thick pumpkin sauce replacing syrup and oat milk replacing dairy milk, which shifts the latte coffee milk ratio and pushes the pumpkin note ahead of the coffee. That heavy aroma is why the drink drew both praise and complaints on social media.

Luckin Coffee launched a Halloween-exclusive new product in collaboration with Pingu just before Halloween—the Pumpkin Oat Latte, which attracted many consumers to place orders and try it right away. However, the drink's appearance and taste sparked widespread discussion on social media. Some found the pumpkin aroma rich, while others complained that it tasted more like a sweet, sticky pumpkin porridge, even joking that pairing it with a roujiamo would make a complete breakfast. This article will sort out the recipe features of this new product, consumer feedback, and the controversy surrounding holiday-exclusive products, to help you understand why this cup of pumpkin latte makes people both love and hate it.

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Today, as many fans had expected, Luckin Coffee updated a batch of Pingu collaboration merchandise and simultaneously launched a Halloween-exclusive new product—the Pumpkin Oat Latte.

Previously, Luckin employees had already revealed this week's new launch plan on social media, so interested users had been following official updates, waiting only for the menu to update before immediately opening the mini-program to order, hoping to be among the first to taste the new product.

Judging from the first batch of feedback on social media, unlike Starbucks drinks with bold appearances and exaggerated shapes, Luckin's Pumpkin Oat Latte looks quite ordinary and plain to appearance-focused fans, with little visual impact. If not for the label on the cup, this new product would look almost no different from everyday coffee drinks.

In fact, judging from the ingredient cup, the production method of this new product is very similar to Luckin's previously launched flavored lattes, except that the syrup has been replaced with a thicker pumpkin sauce and the milk with oat milk. But when users received the drink and opened the lid, the rich, sweet pumpkin aroma that rushed out still met their expectations for a Halloween-exclusive drink.

However, after the first sip, tasters unanimously showed the same shocked expression as Pingu on the promotional poster. They said the new product indeed had a very strong pumpkin aroma, and it smelled much like steamed pumpkin from memory, but precisely because this aroma was too prominent, it completely covered the coffee's aroma, making the overall taste like a sweet, sticky pumpkin-flavored oat milk.

In addition, according to official promotion and materials posted by staff, what is added to this new product is not syrup, but a thicker, sweeter pumpkin sauce. For users who do not like sweetness, even with less sauce, the sweetness is still hard to accept. Some consumers who bought the iced drink said that if they did not stir it evenly before drinking, the first sip would likely be the undissolved sauce settled at the bottom.

Customers who chose the hot drink said that perhaps due to the temperature, after the unique aroma of oat milk mixed with pumpkin, the first sip made them feel like they were eating "watery pumpkin porridge," "pumpkin rice," or "pumpkin paste with water," and the experience was not much better than the iced drink. Some netizens joked that this cup of "Luckin pumpkin porridge," if paired with a roujiamo, would actually make a pretty good breakfast.

Some fans who were greatly disappointed with the Halloween-exclusive drink said that although Luckin launched this pumpkin new product before the holiday, this same-old-recipe approach made people can't help feeling that the brand was just trying to catch up with Halloween and perfunctorily met users' expectations with a cup of pumpkin-flavored latte.

However, some believe that this kind of limited-edition product is originally just for customers seeking novelty, buying a cup to take photos under the Halloween atmosphere. Once the holiday passes, most people probably will not repurchase it. In that case, why bother putting effort into developing it?

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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