Is iced americano bitter when the recipe changes?

Luckin's Orange C Americano now shows visible pulp particles and sediment, and longtime drinkers say the taste has turned sour, astringent, and cloudy. An employee said the ingredients were switched to quick-frozen orange pulp, which raises NFC content and cleans up the label but changes the texture. Fans are asking the brand to bring back the original recipe.

Orange juice naturally brings sweet-and-sour notes that soften the bitterness of espresso, which is why the drink drew light coffee drinkers and became a top seller. Bitterness in an iced americano depends on the coffee base, the dilution, and any added juice or pulp. With pulp left in suspension, the cup reads less bitter but more acidic and heavier in body.

Luckin's Orange C Americano has always been the sales champion in the brand's fruit coffee category, winning over light coffee drinkers with its refreshing sweet-and-sour taste. However, recently many loyal customers have noticed obvious fruit pulp particles and sediment in this drink, and the taste has become sour, astringent, and cloudy, sparking speculation about a recipe change. Subsequently, an internal employee revealed that the ingredients for Orange C Americano have been replaced with quick-frozen orange pulp. Although the ingredient list is cleaner and the NFC content is higher, the presence of fruit pulp components has altered the taste. Fans are not buying it, believing that taste is the key to repeat purchases, and are calling on the brand to revert to the original recipe.

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Long-time fans know that Luckin has two flagship products with sales exceeding 100 million: one is Coconut Latte, and the other is Orange C Americano. If the former established Luckin's position in the milk coffee scene, then the latter truly propelled the brand into the fruit coffee category.

Although the R&D team churns out new products day after day, even today, Orange C Americano still firmly occupies a top spot on Luckin's bestseller list thanks to its consistently high order rate.

From the product's own perspective, orange juice naturally carries the sweet-and-sour aroma of fruit. When blended with black coffee, it not only brings out a refreshing taste and adds layers of complexity, but also softens the bitterness of the espresso, making it more friendly to light coffee drinkers. This is how Orange C Americano transformed from a "niche item" into today's "traffic hit."

But recently, more and more hardcore fans have noticed that Luckin's Orange C Americano suddenly has quite a few fruit pulp particles floating in the drink. Besides making the entire cup visibly "cloudy," the taste is no longer refreshing. So everyone began to speculate whether Luckin had changed the recipe.

From the photos everyone has taken, Luckin's recently produced Orange C does indeed look "different" as netizens have said. You see, in the past, once this coffee was made, it would have a clear orange base with dark brown coffee liquid on top. Even after stirring with a straw, the drink would remain relatively clear.

But the new version of Orange C clearly has many more "granular" components, with strands of orange pulp at the bottom of the cup. After mixing with the coffee, the color immediately becomes dull. Some people who ordered the hot version were startled by the pulp floating on the surface the moment they lifted the lid, thinking the barista had made a mistake.

Besides looking different from before, the new version of Orange C Americano also shows obvious differences in taste. Many long-time fans believe that the old Orange C was clean and sweet-sour on the palate, with moderate fruit aroma, leaving you craving more after finishing it. But the current version with pulp has a very noticeable foreign-body sensation when drinking, sometimes even directly "clogging" the straw. The orange juice taste is also somewhat sour and astringent, and after adding coffee it becomes somewhat bitter. The taste is completely on a different wavelength from the "white moonlight" in their memory.

"Did my taste change, or did Orange C change?" "Orange C girls are truly heartbroken." "The sky has fallen—Luckin's Orange C Americano changed its recipe." "Luckin! How could you secretly swap the orange juice behind my back?" "How did Orange C turn into Minute Maid Pulpy Orange?" "Luckin, if you can't do it right, let's just discontinue Orange C." "They actually added pulp—it really tastes different now, sour and astringent." "Orange C never had sediment before. Today's cup inexplicably has a lot of sediment."...

As more and more feedback posts appeared, several employees finally couldn't help but step forward to explain these past few days: the ingredient Luckin now uses to make Orange C Americano has been switched to quick-frozen orange pulp. The ingredient list is much cleaner than before, and the NFC content is higher—you could say the drink has become healthier. However, because it contains fruit pulp components, slight astringency in the coffee is normal.

To this explanation, Orange C fans surprisingly and unanimously said they "aren't buying it." After all, in everyone's view, they kept repurchasing this item precisely because it tasted good. So compared to claims like "clean ingredients" and "healthy," the taste of the coffee is what matters. Now that the taste has changed dramatically due to the ingredient swap, Orange C is no longer the Orange C in their memory. So in order to drink back the "white moonlight" from their first encounter, they still hope the brand will switch back as soon as possible.

Image source: Xiaohongshu screenshot

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