Why the Coffee Culture Crowd Chased a Golden Bowl
Starbucks teamed up with delivery platform Ele.me to release a limited "Fortune Bowl" holiday set, offering a co-branded golden rice bowl to customers who ordered designated two-cup drink sets or added 39.9 yuan between December 23 and 31. Because supplies were limited to one bowl per store, fans lined up online at 7 a.m., turning the promotion into an early-morning buying rush.
The bowl is made of food-grade stainless steel with a printed bear logo and an engraved phrase about turning bad luck into good fortune, and it ships with an anti-scald sleeve and heat-insulating mat. Curiously, the bottom carries a small text warning about a suitable temperature limit, which became a talking point in coffee culture circles and a source of jokes online.
Starbucks has partnered with Ele.me to launch the "Fortune Bowl" holiday set for its dedicated delivery service. During the promotion, customers who order designated two-cup drink sets or add 39.9 yuan can grab a co-branded golden rice bowl. Although this food-grade stainless steel merchandise comes with an anti-scald bowl sleeve and heat-insulating bowl mat, the bottom is labeled with "suitable temperature<45℃"，与盛放热食的初衷形成反差，引发网友调侃"化缘只能化冰美式"。由于每家店仅一个库存，抢购氛围紧张，有人轻松入手，也有人遭遇加购失败、订单被取消甚至价格突变等问题。星巴克对此解释为系统bug。
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Early this morning, while most office workers were still asleep or groggily making their way through their commute, Starbucks fans had already launched a fierce "battle for the bowl."
Last week, news emerged that Starbucks would team up with Ele.me to launch the "Fortune Bowl" holiday set for its dedicated delivery service. The promotion rules stated: from December 23 to 31, users who order designated two-cup drink sets through the delivery platform, or purchase any Starbucks product and add 39.9 yuan at checkout, can grab the co-branded golden rice bowl. In addition, a matching golden "Fortune Tableware" set will go on sale later.
Although this design style is somewhat more unconventional compared to Starbucks' usual refined approach, netizens nowadays happen to have a particular fondness for quirky items like this, and this container shaped like a golden alms bowl naturally attracted quite a few curious buyers.
According to the official introduction, this merchandise is made of food-grade stainless steel. Besides its golden appearance, the container features a print of Manager Bear's head, and four characters are engraved on the bottom, symbolizing "turning bad luck (🐻) into good fortune."
But what confused everyone the most was that although Starbucks equipped each golden bowl with an anti-scald bowl sleeve and heat-insulating bowl mat, it still printed a line of small text on the bottom of each container: "Suitable temperature<45℃"。也就是说，这个本应用于盛放热食的金饭碗，拿回家后只能装冷食。如此反差让不少路人调侃：看来化缘也只能化冰美式了。
Because Starbucks revealed in advance during the promotion that there would be "only one per store," the while-supplies-last rule meant that anyone wanting to successfully grab this golden rice bowl had to get up early to snap it up, which instantly heightened the tension among merchandise fans. At 7 a.m. sharp, the "battle for the bowl" alarm went off, and success or failure depended on whether a store would process a cancellation after ordering.
As more and more people showed off their spoils, they also shared their snapping tips on social media. They said that although each store indeed had only one in stock, as long as you timed your add-to-cart and payment just right, the success rate was still relatively high—proving that the early bird truly catches the worm.
Some customers also said that because the Starbucks near their homes actually had quite a bit of stock, there was no need to scramble at all, so getting this "golden rice bowl" was a piece of cake.
On the other hand, for users with slower fingers whose chosen store happened to have only one in stock, things were not so lucky in the "battle for the bowl." They thought that as long as they got up early, they could place an order smoothly, but when they opened the delivery app, they discovered they did not even have the chance to add it to their cart—because once a store's only unit was claimed, all sets on the platform containing this Starbucks golden rice bowl would show as "sold out."
In this situation, even if you successfully added it to your cart and paid, the store staff would cancel the order because they could not provide the physical item. When you entered the page again to repurchase, either the set had already become sold out, or the price had changed. One customer said that when reordering, they found the set was a full 15 yuan more expensive than before, and Starbucks' explanation was that "there was a system bug."
Image source: online screenshot
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
