Why Did a Silver Cup Coating Get Mistaken for Coffee Mold?

Heytea has replaced its clear cold-drink cups with a version carrying a silver-gray coating at the top and a silver-gray logo. Some customers mistook the coating for mold on the milk cap, and milk cap fans say they can no longer judge the topping amount by sight. The brand says the layer is decorative packaging, not spoilage.

Staff report that the coating obscures the water level and milk cap lines, making it harder to hit output standards when adding milk caps by hand. Photographs of the new cups look more layered, which some drinkers like, but the change has created misunderstandings and extra work at the bar during service.

Heytea recently swapped out its clear plastic cups for cold drinks, adding a silver-gray decorative coating to the top of the cup and changing the brand logo to silver-gray as well. This design change has sparked discussion on multiple fronts: some customers mistakenly thought the milk cap had gone moldy, milk cap lovers worried they could no longer judge the amount of milk cap by appearance, and some netizens felt the silver coating easily evokes associations with something inedible or spoiled. At the same time, Heytea employees also reported that the water level lines and milk cap lines on the new cups are hard to make out because of the coating, making it more difficult to judge output standards when manually adding milk caps. Although the new cups look more layered and premium in photos, they also bring misunderstandings and inconvenience in actual use. This article is compiled from Coffee Workshop, and Front Street Coffee presents the full story for you.

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Recently, a customer ordered two drinks at Heytea and noticed a subtle difference in appearance between the two milk teas after receiving them. The upper part of the cup on the right showed a light gray that made one's heart tighten, and this consumer immediately had the question, "Has the milk cap gone moldy?"

In fact, the layer of "gray" above the milk cap was not because the drink had gone bad, but a decorative coating on the brand's newly switched packaging cups. From the pictures shared by the customer, Heytea recently updated the clear plastic cups used for cold drinks. The brand logo on the new cups was changed to silver-gray, and a silver-gray coating was also added at the top of the cup.

Although this small change to the packaging does not really help the flavor or mouthfeel of the drink, in the eyes of photo-loving consumers, Heytea's new packaging cups improve the visual effect of the entire drink and make it easier for everyone to take good-looking photos. They said outright that the brand's new design understands today's consumers very well: "So layered and quite good-looking," "It looks even tastier," "It looks so premium."

However, milk cap lovers felt somewhat worried after seeing the decorative coating at the top of the cup. They pointed out that the newly added silver-gray decoration on the packaging cup basically overlaps with the position of the milk cap on the upper layer of the drink, making it difficult for customers to judge how much milk cap was actually added if they only look at the appearance after receiving the drink.

As a result, some customers joked that after Heytea switched to the new packaging cups, if staff put in less milk cap or even none at all, careless consumers might not notice at all from the appearance.

In addition, many netizens also mentioned that although the silver-gray decoration on the cup makes it look cooler, on second thought it feels "not like an edible color," which may make people mistakenly think the cup is fading, or suspect whether the fruit tea or milk cap in the cup has gone moldy or spoiled. They said bluntly, "Not all drinks are suitable for being set off by silver packaging cups."

Besides consumers complaining about the new packaging cups, employees also have quite a few opinions about them in actual operation.

Generally speaking, in order to make it convenient for staff to confirm material amounts, tea beverage shops mostly mark water level lines, milk cap lines, and so on on packaging cups, so that makers can intuitively judge whether the drink in hand meets output standards.

But according to feedback from Heytea workers, after the new packaging cups added the silver-gray coating, the white standard lines on the cup became somewhat difficult to see clearly: "You simply can't see the cheese line on this cup," "It just blocks my view of the milk cap line," "There is a line, but it's transparent, very hard to see."

Some store employees said that although Heytea can now rely on machines for quantitative dispensing when making tea drinks, the milk cap on top is manually added by staff and still requires judging by the marked lines whether the milk cap has been added to output standard. Therefore, for them, the silver-gray coating on the cup is certainly attractive, but it blurs the original marked lines and adds some workload for workers who need to look at the lines to make tea.

Many netizens said that the limited silver-plated packaging cups Heytea launched previously won love from many fans, and the brand may have drawn inspiration from this and replaced its cold drink cups across the board. But as some people said, the newly designed packaging cups may cater to the preferences of the looks-focused crowd, yet they are not friendly to most people.

They believe that when designing packaging cups, Heytea should also consider whether actual use will cause misunderstandings among consumers and increase the workload of store employees, and should not let external beauty affect users' actual experience.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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