Why are Luckin coffee tea extraction machines left unused?

Luckin Coffee upgraded its light milk tea series by replacing tea powder with freshly extracted tea liquid and equipped more than 20,000 stores nationwide with tea extraction machines. After the relaunch of Freshly Extracted Light Jasmine, some stores wrapped the machines in plastic, tagged them prohibited, or left them in the warehouse, even as customers ordered the new drink.

Store employees point to cleaning burden, material waste, and differences in order volume between locations. The machine needs three to five cycles per batch of tea liquid, which adds labor at low-traffic stores. The gap between the brand's promotion and daily store operations has turned the device into a visible efficiency problem for Luckin Coffee.

Luckin Coffee's light milk tea series, which sold well last year, has recently undergone a comprehensive upgrade, with the core change being the replacement of the previous tea powder with freshly extracted tea liquid. To this end, the brand equipped more than 20,000 stores nationwide with tea extraction machines. However, after the new product launched, some stores sealed the machine with plastic wrap, stuck "prohibited" labels on it, or even left it untouched in the warehouse. What exactly makes employees keep their distance from a device the company is pushing so hard? From the burden of cleaning and material waste to differences in store order volumes, what kind of awkward situation has this tea extraction machine encountered in actual operations? This article takes you through it.

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Last Wednesday, Luckin announced simultaneously on multiple platforms that its light milk tea series, which performed brilliantly in the market last year, was getting a comprehensive upgrade, posting four updates in a row and highlighting the unique features of the upgraded light milk tea.

Among them, the issue previously criticized by many consumers—"light milk tea uses tea powder"—became the centerpiece of this improvement. It is understood that Luckin equipped more than 20,000 stores nationwide with tea extraction machines, replacing the previous tea powder with freshly extracted tea liquid to enhance the flavor and mouthfeel of the light milk tea.

Yesterday, as soon as the revamped light milk tea "Freshly Extracted Light Jasmine" launched, it drew a large number of customers to place orders and try it. Some consumers even made a special trip to offline stores, wanting to see with their own eyes the tea extraction machine repeatedly mentioned in Luckin's promotion.

But after arriving at the store, the first thing many people noticed was that there was an extra device behind the counter wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and tagged with a "prohibited" note. Everyone couldn't help but wonder what this uniquely shaped machine was actually for.

In response, Luckin store employees explained: that "decoration" on the counter is exactly the tea extraction machine promoted by the brand for making Freshly Extracted Light Jasmine. According to them, each time the device prepares tea liquid, it needs three to five tea bags, with an extraction time of eight minutes, producing one large bucket of tea liquid at a time for making the new product.

According to the company's operational requirements, starting yesterday all stores nationwide must use this machine to make freshly extracted tea liquid, but the scenes customers captured were in fact not limited to just one store.

Since Guangzhou took the lead in piloting the tea extraction machine at the end of last year, Luckin employees have privately called this machine the "walking S-item." From photos posted by one worker, this tea extraction machine is extremely prone to trapping dirt from top to bottom, and with the slightest lapse, residue, foreign matter, or even damage can remain on the parts.

Therefore, the company stipulates that every time a store uses the machine to brew tea, after making one bucket of tea liquid, employees must thoroughly clean it inside and out before it can be used again to brew the next bucket.

In addition, Luckin staff said that the amount of ingredients produced by the tea extraction machine each time is rather large. For high-volume stores, using the machine to make large buckets of tea liquid can indeed save time in preparing ingredients and make it easier to handle peak periods.

But for low-volume stores, this tea liquid can only be kept for a short four hours, making it hard to use up within the shelf life, so much so that some employees reported that once the tea liquid made by the tea extraction machine cannot be fully consumed, it can only be poured down the drain and destroyed.

As a result, based on various situations in actual operation that affect employee efficiency, many stores, after obtaining approval from regional managers and other management, simply wrapped the machine in plastic wrap and attached labels, letting it only "stand on display" rather than be used to brew tea. Some stores, after receiving the new machine, stuffed it untouched into a warehouse corner to gather dust, just to keep it out of sight.

As for the tea liquid essential to the new product, workers who gave up on the tea extraction machine hauled out the cold water buckets from the shelves and switched to "manual tea brewing." They said that "hand-brewed" tea liquid also takes eight minutes to make, but there is no need to spend a great deal of time and energy cleaning the machine after brewing.

Moreover, they can adjust the amount of "hand-brewed tea" according to the store's actual order volume, avoiding material waste.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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