What are the ingredients of coffee drinks like these fruit teas?

ChaPanda has brought back its signature strawberry drink and added a Light & Fresh Kale strawberry version plus Divine Beauty Strawberry, made with roselle, strawberries and pineapple and marketed as a natural liquid blush. A staff video showing the manual juicing process prompted complaints about the workload.

In the video, fruit is blended to a thin puree, poured into a filter bag, then squeezed by hand to extract the mixed juice before strawberries and ice are added. Staff report that a full pitcher yields only two cups and bags often burst. This contrasts with how do we make coffee, where brewing is quick and repeatable.

As the winter strawberry season arrives, major chain beverage brands are rolling out strawberry-related drinks one after another. ChaPanda, responding to fans' calls, has brought its signature strawberry drink back to the menu, while also riding the fruit-and-vegetable juice trend by launching a strawberry version of its Light & Fresh Kale drink and a brand-new item, Divine Beauty Strawberry. Among them, Divine Beauty Strawberry is made fresh with ingredients such as roselle, strawberries, and pineapple, and has been dubbed a "natural liquid blush" by the brand, attracting many consumers eager to try it. However, a preparation video posted publicly by staff revealed the tedious, labor-intensive manual juicing process behind this drink—a full pitcher of ingredients, after hand-squeezing, yields only two cups, and the filter bags frequently burst from the pressure, prompting staff to complain collectively. The inefficient preparation method has also led some netizens to worry about hygiene conditions.

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Winter strawberries are gradually hitting the market, and major chain brands are rushing to launch strawberry-related drinks. ChaPanda is one of them; responding to fans' calls, the brand has brought its signature strawberry drink back to the menu, while also launching a strawberry version of its Light & Fresh Kale drink and a new item, Divine Beauty Strawberry, to ride the current surge in the fruit-and-vegetable juice market.

Among them, this freshly made fruit-and-vegetable tea called Divine Beauty Strawberry blends fresh ingredients such as roselle, strawberries, and pineapple, and has been labeled a "natural liquid blush" by the brand, successfully attracting many beauty-conscious customers to place orders and give it a try.

However, ingredient-conscious consumers always want to know exactly what's in a drink and how it's made before buying. To answer users' questions directly, ChaPanda employees simply filmed a video and made the complete preparation process of Divine Beauty Strawberry public.

From the video, the staff first place the prepared fruit into a smoothie machine according to the recipe ratio, blending it into a thin puree, then pour it into a filter bag, repeatedly squeezing the bag to extract the mixed juice, and finally add decorative strawberries and ice cubes to adjust the taste.

According to the staff, the full pitcher of raw ingredients shown in the video, after manual squeezing, ultimately yields only enough for two cups of the drink. Once the prepared juice runs out, they have to quickly squeeze more on the spot.

Because the preparation of Divine Beauty Strawberry is complicated, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, it drew collective complaints from staff within just a few days of launch: "This stuff is really hard to squeeze, it only makes two cups at a time," "I sweat buckets squeezing it, the filter bags burst their seams," "The tea filter bags—I've wrecked two of them," "That Divine Beauty Strawberry is the real hate magnet, the bags burst their seams from squeezing."

Employees on the morning shift said that in order to have all materials ready before official business hours, they usually need to arrive early, reserving one to two hours to prepare regular ingredients, and only after finishing daily tasks can they find time to make the mixed juice needed for the fruit-and-vegetable teas.

Earlier, when ChaPanda first launched its wheatgrass juice, many morning-shift employees already found their prep time stretched thin and had to arrive earlier than usual. As the fruit-and-vegetable tea category keeps expanding, some morning-shift staff say they need to spend even more time preparing juice, and are often infuriated by this cumbersome and inefficient juicing method, unable to resist grumbling about their R&D colleagues in the back kitchen: "Suffering for no reason—the R&D department really outdid themselves."

The fruit-and-vegetable teas that beverage brands are currently racing to launch are actually quite similar in method—simply mixing various fruits and vegetables with a tea base and "keeping the essence while discarding the dregs," so the final product looks clear and bright in color while letting you taste the aroma and flavor of the fruits and vegetables themselves.

However, after seeing the staff's "manual juicing" process, many netizens said bluntly that although this inefficient method lets consumers drink freshly made fruit-and-vegetable tea with real ingredients and no added high-tech stuff, it also makes some people worry about hygiene after witnessing the employees' operations: "Just thinking about it being squeezed out like that... I don't want to drink it anymore."

In response, some users suggested that the brand equip its offline stores with proper juicing equipment, which would both improve staff efficiency and let consumers buy freshly made products with greater peace of mind.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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