What went wrong with the grape coffee recipe change at Luckin?

Luckin's relaunched lemon tea series switched to freshly brewed jasmine tea with a new lemon juice batch, lemon pulp and half a yellow lemon. That half lemon belongs only in the light coffee lemon tea, but one employee added it to the grape coffee lemon tea by mistake, turning the drink pale purple with an unexpected garnish. Customers complained the lemon blocked the straw, and staff found the recipe easy to fumble at peak hours.

Social media split over the change: some liked how the lemon lifted the drink's appearance, while others said it hurt the experience. Employees shared preparation videos showing the decoration step was never meant for the grape version. The mishap has outlasted the drink itself, with both sides asking whether the yellow lemon should stay on the menu.

After Luckin's lemon tea series was relaunched, the recipe was adjusted to freshly brewed jasmine tea paired with a new batch of lemon juice, plus lemon pulp and half a yellow lemon. However, this half yellow lemon was supposed to appear only in the light coffee lemon tea, but due to an employee's operational error, it was mistakenly added to the grape lemon tea, sparking a series of complaints and grievances. Customers received a pale purple drink that should not have contained yellow lemon, while employees were miserable due to the cumbersome recipe and the ease of making mistakes during peak hours. This article will sort out the operational pressure behind this recipe revision, the changes in consumer experience, and the shared call from both employees and customers regarding whether the yellow lemon should stay or go.

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A while ago, the lemon tea series that had been off Luckin's menu for some time made a comeback. It is understood that the newly launched lemon tea underwent adjustments in ingredients, switching to freshly brewed jasmine tea and a brand-new batch of lemon juice, while also adding lemon pulp and half a lemon. Compared with the old version, both the flavor and mouthfeel are noticeably different.

Recipe upgrades often cause some discomfort for regular customers in terms of taste, so in the days after the lemon tea returned, a large number of discussions about Luckin's lemon tea appeared on social platforms.

Many people posted photos of the grape lemon tea they bought, saying that the half yellow lemon added a touch of brightness to the pale purple drink and enhanced its overall appearance. However, some consumers, from a practical point of view, thought this half lemon was too eye-catching and actually got in the way of inserting a straw, feeling that Luckin's change this time did not bring customers an ideal experience.

Just as customers were arguing endlessly over whether grape lemon tea should contain yellow lemon, many Luckin employees were stomping their feet in frustration upon seeing these buyer shows.

According to the recipes and preparation process videos shared by store staff, this half yellow lemon, mainly used for decoration, should actually appear only in the light coffee lemon tea, and should not be put into the grape lemon tea. In other words, those pale purple drinks customers received with yellow lemon were all the product of employees' momentary negligence and mistakes. As long as they take a photo and report it to the store, they can get a free remade drink.

In response, many Luckin employees who were complained about due to production errors did not hide their complaints about the new recipe. They said that when they learned from operational notices that the drinks needed yellow lemon added, many were already worried that once stores got slammed with orders, mistakes would happen in the rush—forgetting to add lemon where it should be added, and mistakenly adding it where it should not be.

From current customer feedback, employees' previous worries were not unfounded. Because several of Luckin's current best-selling drinks require base ingredients that are consumed quickly but time-consuming to prepare, in understaffed stores, employees not only have to find time to prep ingredients, but also must complete cleaning tasks on schedule, ensure timely production, and at the same time deal with customers ordering or picking up drinks in store.

Thus, when stretched thin, employees who had not yet become familiar with the new lemon tea process could easily make operational mistakes by putting yellow lemon in the wrong drink once they hit an order peak. Many employees revealed that on the first day the new recipe launched, they added yellow lemon to all the grape lemon tea in the store, causing excessive store losses.

On the other hand, in the view of Luckin employees, whether this half yellow lemon is added or not actually has little impact on the drink's taste, but the hard frozen item takes up space in the takeaway cup and gives consumers a less pleasant drinking experience, causing a sharp increase in recent negative reviews and complaints received by stores, which in turn affects the performance of all staff in the store.

Therefore, employees have one after another "begged" customers to give feedback to the brand about their feelings on the new lemon tea, believing that perhaps if enough people complain, the company will consider adjusting the recipe again and remove that half yellow lemon that "customers dislike and employees do not love."

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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