When Was Coffee Introduced to China? Chagee Apology Fallout

Chagee faced a storm of controversy after translating Spring Festival as "Lunar New Year" on an overseas social platform. The brand apologized overnight in the comments section of the post and revised the wording, but users said a comment reply lacked sincerity and demanded formal apologies on all platforms at home and abroad.

The dispute landed in the first New Year after Spring Festival was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2024, when its official English name became the literal translation "Spring Festival." The backlash centered on linguistic accuracy and cultural sensitivity in cross-cultural communication. For context, when was coffee introduced to China is a separate question that also reflects how foreign products and terms get localized over time.

In the first New Year after Spring Festival was successfully inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the chain tea brand Chagee found itself in a storm of controversy because it translated Spring Festival as "Lunar New Year" on an overseas social platform. Netizens pointed out that this expression cannot accurately refer to the Chinese Spring Festival and contradicts the brand's long-promoted philosophy of "meeting friends of the world with Eastern tea." Although the brand apologized overnight in the comments section of the post and revised the wording, responding only in the form of a comment was criticized as lacking sincerity, and most netizens said they were not convinced, demanding a formal apology on all platforms at home and abroad. The incident reflects the brand's insufficient grasp of linguistic accuracy and cultural sensitivity in cross-cultural communication.

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Recently, the chain tea brand Chagee got into trouble — its translation of the word "Spring Festival" in a post on an overseas social platform sparked huge controversy.

A sharp-eyed netizen noticed that in copy posted on Chagee's overseas account, "Lunar New Year" was used to refer to Spring Festival rather than "Chinese New Year" or "Spring Festival." The netizen then reposted the screenshot to a domestic social platform, and it quickly sparked extensive discussion.

When it comes to the English expression for Spring Festival, most people's first reaction is "Chinese New Year" and "Spring Festival," while some are used to saying "Lunar New Year." And after Spring Festival was successfully added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2024, these three English names for "Spring Festival" became a hot topic online recently.

It is reported that when applying to UNESCO for intangible cultural heritage status, the finalized standard English name for "Spring Festival" came from the literal translation "Spring Festival," so this name naturally became the official English name for Spring Festival. Of the other two names, the straightforward "Chinese New Year" has naturally also been accepted by the public, but whether "Lunar New Year" can refer to the Chinese Spring Festival has long been debated.

According to professional interpretation, the English word "Lunar" means "of the moon," so the accurate translation of Lunar New Year should be "lunar calendar New Year," which cannot fully convey the concept of a "lunisolar calendar." "From a calendrical perspective, Lunar New Year is inaccurate. The agricultural calendar we use is a lunisolar calendar, and China's mainstream calendar from ancient times to the present has always been a lunisolar calendar."

In addition, in an overseas context, "Lunar New Year" can actually broadly refer to the lunar new year of multiple East Asian countries, such as South Korea's "Seollal" (설날), Vietnam's "Tết" (Spring Festival), and Mongolia's "Tsagaan Sar" (White Moon Festival), all of which can be translated as "Lunar New Year." Therefore, professionals point out that this term cannot precisely correspond to the Chinese Spring Festival and is prone to causing misunderstandings.

For this reason, many netizens believed that in the first New Year after the successful UNESCO inscription of the Chinese Spring Festival, Chagee, which has always used the slogan "meeting friends of the world with Eastern tea," acted very inappropriately by using "Lunar New Year" to refer to Spring Festival on an overseas platform, and they rushed to leave comments on its homepage demanding that the brand respond as soon as possible and revise the wording in its copy.

On the evening of January 24, Chagee apologized in the comments section of a post for the improper translation of "Spring Festival" on its overseas platforms: "We are very sorry that we did not align our overseas local teams on using a more consistent expression for the translation of 'Spring Festival.' We will subsequently strengthen the management of and communication with our overseas accounts to ensure the accuracy of the content expressed."

However, this apology statement did not win the approval of the vast number of netizens. They said that although Chagee revised the wording in its overseas post overnight and apologized for the improper translation, the statement was only posted in the comments section of the post, and from the perspective of users following the matter, this move by the brand lacked sincerity.

Most people said bluntly that they would rather see Chagee issue a formal apology on all platforms at home and abroad rather than brush the matter aside with a comment. But a minority also believed that since the official side had already apologized and immediately corrected the inappropriate expression, onlooking netizens did not need to overreact.

Image source: Internet

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