What Is a Long Black and Why Fruit Pulp Residue Matters

The debate over Nayuki's Double-Antioxidant Little Red Bottle centers on texture: a 500ml drink with tree tomato, blueberry, cherry tomato, and lemon pulp that settles as peel and seeds at the bottom of the cup. Some customers reported spitting out grit, and one nearly choked on a lemon seed. Staff said the recipe does not require filtering the fruit puree, so each batch varies.

The dispute highlights a tradeoff in fruit-and-vegetable teas, much as coffee is like a drink where extraction and filtration shape mouthfeel. Some consumers want a filtering step, while others see the residue as proof of fresh ingredients. The outcome may push chains to standardize straining or to label texture expectations before launch, since taste and health claims are hard to balance in one cup.

Nayuki recently launched a new product, the "Double-Antioxidant Little Red Bottle," featuring Yunnan tree tomatoes blended with freshly squeezed fruits like blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and lemon. It claims to be sweet and sour, rich in vitamin C and lycopene. However, soon after its launch, the first batch of curious consumers complained: a large amount of fruit peel and seeds settled at the bottom of the cup, and every sip was full of grit—some even nearly choked on a lemon seed. Staff responded that filtering the fruit puree was not required during production, and the final product varied due to differences in handling. Interestingly, netizens were divided—some suggested adding a filtering step, while others believed the fruit residue was precisely proof of "real ingredients." Behind this controversy lies the difficulty of balancing taste and health in fruit-and-vegetable teas.

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Nayuki recently updated its "Daily 500 Fruit & Vegetable Bottle" series, launching a new product called the "Double-Antioxidant Little Red Bottle."

According to the official description, this drink features Yunnan's unique wild fruit tree tomato as the star, combined with freshly squeezed fruits such as blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and lemon. It has a sweet-and-sour taste and is rich in vitamin C and lycopene, exactly catering to young people's current consumer desire for something both tasty and healthful.

After the Little Red Bottle went on sale, many fans ordered it for the novel ingredient tree tomato, wanting to verify for themselves what it actually tasted like.

But when they actually drank it, many fell silent and frowned—the first wave of customers who tried it spat out what they had sucked into their mouths to examine it carefully.

From photos uploaded by netizens, it can be seen that a lot of residue such as tomato skin, blueberry skin, and lemon seeds accumulated at the bottom of the cup. Once the straw stirred, this sediment would be sucked into the mouth along with the juice, and that foreign-body sensation was quite unpleasant.

The unexpectedly strange mouthfeel made the first batch of consumers full of complaints about this new product: "Half of a 500ml cup is residue," "There's so much fruit residue, I keep spitting out seeds," "One sip and I have to spit out peel and seeds," "One drink, a mouthful of skin," "One huge lemon seed almost choked me, be very careful when drinking..."

In response to the doubts, Nayuki store employees explained: according to the company's recipe, they need to first wash the tree tomatoes clean, put them into a machine and blend them into a puree, then mix them in proportion with fresh blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and so on, pound vigorously to squeeze out the juice from the fruits and vegetables, add the tea base and stir evenly, and finally pour it into a takeaway cup to serve.

However, judging from the new product preparation videos posted by employees, there is no filtering step in the entire process. Some employees added that, unlike fruit-and-vegetable teas from other brands on the market, Nayuki does not require stores to filter the juice out of the pounded fruit puree, and because each employee's pounding strength and operating habits differ, the final state of the product from different stores inevitably varies.

Some stores make the Little Red Bottle clear and translucent, without any impurities, sweet and sour and refreshing on the palate, instantly capturing consumers' taste buds and making them want another cup. But the products from other stores are just like what the earlier customers complained about: peel and seeds are clearly visible settling at the bottom of the transparent cup, so much so that some netizens joked that as long as you stare for a couple more seconds, you can tell exactly which fruits and vegetables were added to this drink without even looking at the official promotion.

Interestingly, netizens' attitudes toward the residual fruit residue in Nayuki's new product are not unified. Some people think that too much residue affects the mouthfeel while drinking, and things like lemon seeds may also cause choking during sipping, posing a safety hazard, so they suggest that stores add a filtering step in the production process.

But others directly said that the fruit residue in Nayuki's new product precisely proves that the brand uses real ingredients and freshly squeezed fruit. As long as consumers see this residue, they actually feel more reassured about this drink that is "not heavy on black technology," and frankly admit that they do not mind sediment at the bottom of the cup.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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