Can coffee make you drunk, and why did this Heytea drink cause palpitations?

Heytea launched Yinghong Cheese Nuonuo, a milk tea built on Yingde black tea from Qingyuan, Guangdong, with cheese nuonuo and a cheesy cloud top. A first-day buy-one-get-one-free offer drove heavy orders, but that night many buyers reported insomnia, palpitations and nausea, and complained on social platforms. The drink carried no caffeine traffic-light label or calorie information, and customer service said the data was still being tested.

The episode ties into a common question: can caffeine make you drunk? Caffeine is a stimulant, not alcohol, so it does not intoxicate, but a strong tea base can produce jitters, a racing heart and sleeplessness that some drinkers describe as feeling off. Because the tea base here was brewed black tea, the caffeine load was likely high, which is why labeling matters for sensitive consumers.

Heytea recently launched a new product, Yinghong Cheese Nuonuo, using Yingde black tea from Qingyuan, Guangdong as the tea base, paired with freshly made cheese nuonuo and cheesy cloud top. Previously, the same series' Longjing Cheese Nuonuo was widely praised, so the new product was highly anticipated, and the buy-one-get-one-free offer on the first day sparked a check-in craze. However, that night, many consumers reported insomnia, palpitations, and even nausea after drinking it, and a large number of "victims" complained on social platforms. More notably, the new product did not label caffeine traffic lights and calorie information as per Heytea's usual practice, and customer service responded that the data is still being tested. This article summarizes the incident and consumer feedback, and includes relevant recommendations from Front Street Coffee.

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Heytea officially announced yesterday the launch of its new product "Yinghong Cheese Nuonuo." According to the official description, this drink uses Yingde black tea produced in Qingyuan, Guangdong as the tea base, combined with freshly made cheese nuonuo and rich cheesy cloud top, aiming to bring consumers a layered milk tea taste.

Previously, Heytea had launched a "Longjing Cheese Nuonuo" with a similar production concept but a different tea base. This product accumulated a good reputation among fans, and even after being sold out and removed from the shelves, many consumers frequently posted asking whether the official would arrange a return.

Based on the positive response accumulated by Longjing Cheese Nuonuo, when the official released news of a new product in the same series, consumers who loved the nuonuo texture were immediately interested. In addition, on the first day of the new product's launch, the brand offered a limited-time buy-one-get-one-free promotion, so a large number of users who had been waiting for a long time placed orders to try it, took photos, and shared their drinking experiences with like-minded people on social platforms.

However, starting late last night, many users who had drunk this new product began to notice something unusual. By two or three in the morning, they were tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep. Some of them posted on social media asking whether others had experienced similar situations, and unexpectedly attracted a large group of fellow "new product victims" who also could not sleep.

"It's past two in the middle of the night and I'm still raving in my head," "My friend and I didn't fall asleep until three!!" "I drank less than half of the milk tea yesterday afternoon and tossed and turned until three in the morning," "I drank it at two in the afternoon and stayed up all night..." Besides forcing people who habitually sleep early to become night owls, some users also reported discomfort such as nausea and a racing heartbeat after drinking the new product, "My head is dizzy, my heart keeps pounding, and my appetite is uncomfortable too."

The overly obvious energizing effect naturally drew complaints from many users, and "post-drink impressions of the new product" shifted from earlier praise to "order with caution, you won't be able to sleep."

At the same time, some noticed that the newly launched Yinghong Cheese Nuonuo did not label the "caffeine traffic light" as other products did, and when opening the official product formula table, there was also no relevant data such as calories and caffeine content for the drink.

Since Heytea introduced its caffeine grading system last year, the brand has labeled drinks on sale and irregularly launched new products with red, yellow, and green lights according to caffeine content, along with detailed ingredient descriptions, helping consumers understand products clearly and intuitively and make their own choices.

It is puzzling that this new product lacks the drinking reminders and product descriptions that are quite important to some users. In response, official customer service explained that data such as calories and caffeine for the tea drink is still in the testing process, and there are temporarily no exact results, so the ordering interface does not show the traffic light label, and promised to update the relevant descriptions after obtaining the test results.

After hearing the customer service explanation, most of the "victims" who were blindsided by the new product and had difficulty sleeping felt that the brand's approach was somewhat inappropriate. They said that since Heytea is releasing a new product, it should have sent the drink for testing in advance and marked drinking reminders on the ordering interface, so as to prevent some consumers from unknowingly drinking milk tea unsuitable for their constitution, causing them to be unable to sleep and forced to watch the moon set and the sun rise.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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