What This Drink Says About Coffee Culture and Regional Taste

HEYTEA has expanded Zhizhi Ganpu, once limited to its Jiangbianli flagship store in Jiangmen, to stores nationwide with a buy-one-get-one-free promotion. The drink blends Xinhui small green tangerine, Yunnan ripe pu'er, and dried tangerine peel powder under a cheese cloud top. Reviews split sharply: Cantonese customers recognize the ganpu and chenpi flavor, while many first-time drinkers elsewhere compare it to herbal granules.

The divide highlights how regional flavors travel. Guangdong drinkers grew up with ganpu tea, so the profile feels familiar. For others, the aged pu'er and tangerine peel read as medicinal rather than refreshing. The launch also eases pressure on flagship staff who once made thousands of cups during holidays, and it gives specialty coffee and tea drinkers a clear case study in how local taste shapes national menus.

Heytea has rolled out the founder-store-exclusive drink Zhizhi Ganpu from its Jiangbianli original location to stores nationwide, drawing many consumers to try it with a buy-one-get-one-free offer. This tea drink, blending Xinhui small green tangerine from Jiangmen, Yunnan ripe pu'er, and dried tangerine peel powder, quickly became a hot topic thanks to its distinctive regional flavor. However, after its national launch, consumer reviews showed a clear polarization: Cantonese customers felt a sense of familiarity because they know the taste of ganpu and dried tangerine peel well, and eagerly recommended it; first-time tryers from other regions bluntly said it tasted like Chinese herbal granules or herbal tea with a milk cap, and some even said their rosy image of it was shattered. Internet prophets said the drink's regional character is too strong and it is destined to be hard to promote on a large scale. This article sorts through the formula features, launch background, and real feedback from netizens on Zhizhi Ganpu, presenting a complete picture of this phenomenon-level single product for coffee and tea drink lovers.

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Heytea recently announced that "Zhizhi Ganpu," a limited-edition drink originally offered only at its Jiangbianli flagship store, would arrive at stores nationwide for a limited time. It is understood that this drink combines Xinhui small green tangerine, a Jiangmen specialty, with Yunnan ripe pu'er to create a ganpu tea infusion with aged aroma, then tops it with Heytea's classic cheese cloud top, making the mouthfeel richer and more layered.

As an exclusive product of the Jiangbianli flagship store, Zhizhi Ganpu quickly made it onto Jiangmen travel check-in lists thanks to its distinct regional character and the scarce "only available here" label. During travel peaks such as National Day and May Day, tourists flocked to the flagship store specifically to order and taste it.

However, consumers who genuinely wanted to try Zhizhi Ganpu found it hard to make a special trip to Jiangmen. In addition, during holidays, flagship store employees had to continuously make thousands of cups of the limited-edition drink, and many customers had suggested to the official team that the product be launched nationwide, so that more people could avoid the hassle of traveling and the pressure on flagship store employees could also be eased.

So Heytea took the suggestion and officially launched Zhizhi Ganpu today, promoting it vigorously with a buy-one-get-one-free offer and attracting a large number of long-awaited fans to place orders and try it. But as tasters shared their impressions on social platforms, onlookers found that consumer reviews of this Jiangmen-exclusive drink showed clear polarization.

According to the officially disclosed formula, in addition to the ganpu tea infusion made from Xinhui tangerine and Yunnan pu'er, the drink also contains Xinhui dried tangerine peel powder.

For Cantonese customers familiar with these two Jiangmen specialties, the taste of Zhizhi Ganpu feels especially close to home. They praised Heytea's creativity and actively recommended it to relatives and friends.

But consumers encountering small green tangerine pu'er and Xinhui dried tangerine peel for the first time frowned, with some describing it as "the first sip feels like dried tangerine peel has become a spirit and is beating up my mouth," while others felt "it's like herbal tea with a milk cap," "the taste is both sweet and salty... a riot of flavors," "every sip feels like drinking Chinese medicine," and "the tea base tastes especially like turtle jelly."

Many said that at first sip it tasted quite like Oriental Leaf's small green tangerine pu'er tea, but after the dried tangerine peel powder on the milk cap mixed with the ganpu tea infusion, the overall flavor became highly similar to certain Chinese herbal granules in their memory. They said bluntly that it was hard to accept a taste so far beyond their expectations, and their rosy image of the flagship-store exclusive drink was shattered along with it.

Interestingly, in the face of the polarized reviews after Zhizhi Ganpu's national launch, many "internet prophets" said they had foreseen it all along: "I knew this one couldn't be promoted widely," "Just from the comments you can tell this one can't leave Guangdong."

In their view, the flavors of these two local specialties, Jiangmen small green tangerine and Xinhui dried tangerine peel, are hard for most netizens to accept, so Zhizhi Ganpu, which blends these "niche elements," has a limited audience—"those who like it will be totally hooked and wish they could have a cup every day; but those who don't only need one sip to stay far away from it."

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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