What Does a Story About Coffee and Milk Tea Work Reveal?

An employee post from the milk tea chain ChaPanda went viral after showing the back-kitchen juicing of mulberries for drinks such as Wu Qi Ma Hei and the Triple Berry Goodnight Cup. Dark red juice covered the counter, blender, and filter bag, and gloved hands squeezing the fruit made the scene look unsettling. The images spread as the ChaPanda Mulberry Man-Eating Incident.

Mulberries are high in anthocyanins, which give them their deep color. That pigment makes fresh juicing slow, labor-intensive, and likely to stain clothing and work surfaces. Employees turned the messy process into jokes that resonated online. The episode has become a widely shared story about coffee and milk tea shop work life, drawing attention to the daily routine behind fresh-fruit drinks.

The daily work life of milk tea shop employees has always been a hot topic on social media, and recently a post published by an employee of ChaPanda unexpectedly went viral because the kitchen scenes were too "creepy." Dark red mulberry juice covered the countertop, blender, and filter bag, and combined with the scene of black gloves squeezing the juice, many netizens said it looked like a horror film was being shot. It is understood that these images came from ChaPanda's daily operation of freshly squeezing mulberry juice when preparing ingredients for products such as "Wu Qi Ma Hei" and "Triple Berry Goodnight Cup." Because mulberries are high in anthocyanins and deeply colored, the juicing process is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also very likely to stain clothes and the work area. Employees complained one after another on social media, and even turned these scenes into jokes such as the "ChaPanda Mulberry Man-Eating Incident," which resonated with many people.

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In topics such as "work life," milk tea shop employees have always been especially active. They either share funny things that happen at work, complain about all kinds of troubles they encounter on the job, or film the production process of new products and the daily routine of cutting fruit and preparing toppings, attracting many followers.

However, recently, a post published by an employee on social media, "Just drink ChaPanda's new mulberry product," attracted a large crowd of onlookers because the images were extremely "creepy."

Open the GIF and you can see that in front of the worker is a messy work area. A plastic bucket contains dark red liquid, next to it is a filter bag of the same color, and in the sink is a blender all too familiar to milk tea shop employees, but every utensil inside and out is covered in red liquid.

Swipe to the second GIF, and black gloves are still constantly squeezing out dark juice. Quite a bit of the liquid splashes onto other places on the counter, and together with uncleaned spoons, scrapers, and other tools, even through the screen you can almost feel the "eerie" atmosphere on site.

This suggestive color, this chaotic scene... even just scrolling past the thumbnail is enough to make one's heart tighten. Fortunately, the poster tagged ChaPanda, so people knew this was work at a milk tea shop. Otherwise, after seeing such an oppressive scene, not to mention the timid being frightened, even peers next door would probably think they were "shooting a horror film."

And netizens with strong creative urges could not resist turning this material into an "industry news story" on the spot, while also speaking up for this worker.

According to the employee's own account, in order to prepare ingredients for ChaPanda's "Wu Qi Ma Hei," which returned last week, and the new product "Triple Berry Goodnight Cup," workers had to develop mighty strength and extract more fresh mulberry juice at any time, so for them such scenes are not unusual and have long become an interlude that plays out at unspecified times every day in the back kitchen.

Looking through social media, there are countless complaint posts from employees about the fresh mulberry juice used in this round of ChaPanda's product line. Aside from complaining about the R&D department's baffling operations, most talk about how cumbersome the production process is: time-consuming, labor-intensive, and easy to stain everything if one is not careful. For example, one employee complained that while preparing ingredients they spilled mulberry juice, and the clothes and shoes they were wearing are now "ruined."

In addition, because mulberries are rich in anthocyanins and deeply colored, every juicing session not only leaves the scene in a mess, but against the dark red juice it also looks especially filthy. Once a phone turns on a high-saturation filter, at a glance it looks exactly like an episode of a "crime scene" program.

But helplessly, no matter how much they complain, this kind of work is ultimately their daily routine, and the R&D department keeps rolling out new products without pause, so rather than grumbling every day, it is better to join this joking contest. As more and more frontline employees start playing along with the memes, they also make sure to edit them into new hashtags to share with everyone, such as "ChaPanda Mulberry Man-Eating Incident," "ChaPanda's First Crime Scene," and "The Back Area Ruled by Mulberries." Each post not only grabs netizens' attention, but more importantly resonates with other coworkers.

It is reported that due to fruit supply issues, this series from ChaPanda is currently only available in some cities, so employees at certain stores are also thankful that they do not have to temporarily transform into "human juicers," but they also quickly call on the brand not to roll it out nationwide, since they really do not want this kind of "crime scene" staged in the back kitchen.

Image source: online screenshots

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