What Can Coffee Drinkers Learn From the Strawberry Tea Dispute?

Luckin promoted its Big Gulp Strawberry Fruit Tea as containing 20 strawberries per cup, but many buyers said the drink tasted like strawberry jam mixed with water rather than fresh fruit tea. Complaints spread across social media, with customers pointing to a thick, viscous texture and only scattered bits of strawberry, and questioning whether the marketing matched what was actually poured.

Livestream hosts held fresh strawberries on camera, which deepened the contrast with what stores served. The case is a reminder that ingredient lists, not posters, set expectations: when a drink's contents are stated clearly, a gap between claim and cup is far less likely to turn into a public argument.

Strawberry season has arrived, and major chain brands are launching seasonal limited-edition drinks one after another. Luckin has also jumped on the bandwagon with its "Big Gulp Strawberry Fruit Tea," officially claiming that each cup contains 20 strawberries. However, after receiving the product, many consumers found that the drink is made from strawberry jam, far from the fresh fruit tea they expected, and complaints have been pouring in on social media. Livestream hosts holding fresh strawberries in their hands create a stark contrast with the thick jam actually used in stores, raising customer doubts about the authenticity of the marketing. This article will sort out the ins and outs of this incident, present consumer feedback and the brand's response, and explore Luckin's consistent ingredient strategy for its fruit tea products.

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Whenever strawberry season arrives, major chain beverage brands rush to launch seasonal limited-edition products featuring strawberries as the core element, and Luckin is no exception, recently releasing its Big Gulp Strawberry Fruit Tea.

From the official product poster, Luckin's selling point for this new item is a refreshing fruit tea that lets you "drink 20 strawberries in every cup." Meanwhile, livestream hosts across various channels display to-go cups filled with over a dozen fresh strawberries, delighting and tempting many fruit tea enthusiasts, who believe Luckin has finally caught up with its tea beverage peers and started using fresh fruit as ingredients for fruit tea.

But when consumers eagerly placed orders and took a sip, they were generally disappointed, saying the drink was nothing like the fruit tea they had in mind. A flood of negative reviews appeared on social media, with complaints like "tastes like strawberry jam mixed with water, not very good," "barely any tea flavor," "tastes the same as canned strawberries," "this should be called strawberry dishwater," and "strawberry bathwater with long-dead strawberry remains" popping up everywhere.

Many customers reported that Luckin's strawberry fruit tea has a viscous strawberry jam texture with a few strawberry bits mixed in, but overall it falls far short of the expected fresh fruit tea and is not made with fresh strawberries. Amid their disappointment, many began to question the authenticity of the official marketing: "It's supposed to be fruit tea made from 20 strawberries—so where exactly are those 20 strawberries?"

According to users who purchased the new product, besides the official livestream, there are many hosts on the platform promoting Luckin's new item and selling discount coupons. When introducing it, these hosts repeatedly emphasized the official claim of "20 strawberries in one cup." Some hosts even showed fresh strawberries on camera, "holding a cup packed with strawberries, claiming they were freshly pressed."

However, in a video uploaded by a Luckin employee showing how the new product is made, what is poured into the shaker is not washed fresh strawberries but thick strawberry jam. The product details page in the mini-program also explains that the "20 strawberries" mentioned in the advertising slogan is a converted figure based on the strawberry jam added according to the recipe ratio, not literally 20 strawberries.

Because of this, some customers concluded that the livestream promotion of Luckin's new product is severely disconnected from the actual product, angrily saying they were willing to try it precisely because of the "20 strawberries" claim, only to end up drinking sugary water mixed with strawberry jam.

Luckin store employees also feel rather helpless about this, saying that channels such as livestreams deliberately exaggerated the selling points during promotion, causing some customers to misunderstand the new product, and when facing complaints they have to spend a great deal of time and energy explaining.

However, veteran customers already familiar with Luckin's product marketing tricks frankly say that the official fruit tea drinks are basically made with ingredients like concentrated juice. "Luckin stores never use fresh fruit—even the lemon tea is made with concentrated lemon jam," "Think about it, it's Luckin, there's no way they'd actually put that much in," "How could Luckin use fresh fruit? If they used fresh fruit, it wouldn't be this price."

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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