How Did Coffee Production Equipment Cope With the Spring Festival Rush?

Milk tea sales across China rose 180.4 percent year on year during the Spring Festival holiday, according to figures cited in the report. Many households served milk tea and coffee at New Year's Eve dinners instead of alcohol. Chain shops entered high gear from New Year's Day, with receipt printers running constantly and prep counters filling with empty cups.

Inside preparation rooms, staff peeled, juiced, and boiled toppings without long breaks. Some worked 12-hour shifts for a full week and went without water or restroom breaks. Induction cookers and smoothie machines ran almost continuously, and equipment jams and breakdowns added to the pressure as customers and delivery riders waited.

During the Spring Festival holiday that just passed, milk tea sales nationwide surged by 180.4% year-on-year. Many consumers put milk tea and coffee on their New Year's Eve dinner tables, replacing traditional alcoholic and other beverages. The surge in orders put chain tea shops into high-intensity operation starting from New Year's Eve: the front-desk receipt printers kept spitting out tickets, empty cups piled up like mountains on the prep counters, and in the preparation room, peeling, juicing, and boiling ingredients never stopped for a moment. Employees worked nonstop—some put in 12-hour days for a full week straight, some were too busy to drink water or use the restroom, and the equipment frequently jammed and broke down. Facing impatient customers and delivery riders, the staff at the order handoff station could only apologize repeatedly, mocking themselves as "sorry to everyone." This article takes you straight into the frenzy of Spring Festival tea shops and the real state of the workers.

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Even before New Year's Eve, major chain brands had already made full preparations for the Spring Festival order peak, allocating large amounts of supplies to their stores. However, compared to last year, consumer demand for tea and coffee rose noticeably this year. Statistics show that since New Year's Eve, milk tea sales nationwide climbed 180.4% year-on-year. Many people put milk tea and coffee on their family dinner tables, replacing alcohol and traditional beverages.

This meant that from New Year's Day itself, chain brands entered a highly tense "battle preparation" state. The receipt printers at tea shop front counters seemed like they had been hacked by malware, endlessly spitting out label stickers, while the prep counters were lined with empty cups waiting to be filled, and the pre-prepared takeout bags were used up in no time.

Stepping into the preparation room, employees were even more relentless, hauling basket after basket of fruits and vegetables onto the work counter, repeating the motions of peeling, juicing, and boiling toppings over and over. Induction cookers, smoothie machines, and other equipment ran almost without stopping. The whole scene was buzzing with activity, no less intense than a restaurant kitchen preparing a New Year's Eve feast.

From photos and videos taken by consumers on social media, it's clear that although four or five employees were stationed behind the counter during the Spring Festival, the continuous stream of orders during peak hours still left everyone sweating profusely. Some customers, looking at the rows of finished drinks on the counter and then at the staff shaking cocktail shakers nonstop, couldn't help but exclaim, "Shaking milk tea on the first day of the new year—your arms must be cramping!"

Facing this situation, tea shop workers had just one thing to say: "Can't finish, simply can't finish." They shared snapshots of the store taken in spare moments: tangled order receipts on the tables, label stickers so numerous and long they could hang as a door curtain, and a back kitchen littered with cardboard boxes and empty bottles like a garbage dump... Many said that at their stores, from the moment the doors opened in the morning, the receipt printer's notification sound never stopped, so they worked continuously from clock-in to clock-out with almost no break.

"I've already worked 12 hours a day for seven days straight," "Today I peeled three baskets of grapes and made over a dozen pots of apple juice," "The delivery riders were so frantic they asked if there were uniforms available—they wanted to come in and help," "Four cups in one hand isn't my limit, it's the cups' limit," "Today I completely broke down—no pauses, even the machines jammed," "These past few days... I worked until my back gave out," "Didn't go to the bathroom all day, didn't even have time for a sip of water."

Yet even though employees complained about being too busy to eat or rest, and the machines ran until they smoked or even broke down, hundreds or thousands of drinks were still hard to finish within the system's required time, causing many users to report that after placing an order, they basically had to wait over an hour to get their milk tea.

So whenever a delivery rider came to pick up an order or a customer urged them on, the staff responsible for handing out orders turned into a broken record, repeatedly explaining, apologizing, and handling various after-sales issues—so much so that someone joked, "Others carry the whole game; I'm sorry to everyone."

Many battle-hardened tea shop workers helplessly noted that although stores had already arranged for extra staff and prepared ample supplies early each day, once a flood of orders came in, they had no choice but to exhaust themselves on the "battlefield" of the production room, so tired that even a sip of water became a luxury.

As for the part-timers who had originally just wanted to earn some pocket money, after going through this ordeal, they all said they had been "disillusioned" with the tea industry, and were just waiting to survive this unusually busy Spring Festival holiday before quitting and escaping the endless sea of orders in tea shops as soon as possible.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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