Why Luckin Coffee and Chagee Draw Food Safety Scrutiny
A viral video of a Chagee employee handling tea drinks with bare hands has triggered widespread food safety concerns, and similar meme clips from workers at Luckin Coffee, Yidiandian, and Guming have since surfaced. Chagee opened an urgent investigation, dismissed the employee involved, suspended the store indefinitely, and demoted management staff. The episode has focused attention on how chain beverage brands police employee behavior on social media.
The original video showed the worker grabbing ice and lemons without gloves and pounding the mixture by hand in a shaker cup. The poster said it was filmed after closing time with damaged ingredients as a parody of the viral "Indian milk tea" meme, but the explanation did not stop the criticism, and the clip was deleted. At least three other Chagee employees had posted similar videos, while staff at Luckin Coffee and other chains also joined the trend, raising questions about where entertainment ends and food safety responsibility begins.
Recently, a video of a Chagee employee handling tea drinks with bare hands spread rapidly online, sparking widespread public concern about food safety issues at chain tea beverage brands. In the video, the employee, without wearing gloves, directly grabbed ice cubes and lemons and reached into a shaker cup to pound and stir, prompting netizens to exclaim they were "disgusted." Although the poster explained that it was filmed after closing hours using damaged materials to mimic the recent "Indian milk tea" meme, public opinion did not subside. Subsequently, netizens discovered that employees from multiple brands including Luckin Coffee, Yidiandian, and Guming had also posted similar meme videos. Chagee officially issued an urgent investigation notice, imposing an indefinite suspension on the store involved, dismissing the employee, and demoting management personnel. This article will review the incident from beginning to end and the responses from various parties, exploring the boundary between food safety and entertainment-oriented marketing in the tea beverage industry.
Last night, a short meme video filmed by a Chagee employee was seen by a large number of netizens on a video platform, immediately triggering heated discussion.
In the video, an employee wearing a Chagee uniform, without gloves, directly grabbed ice cubes with their hands, squeezed lemons, filled the cup with ingredients, and then reached bare-handed into the shaker cup to pound and stir. This series of actions made viewers extremely uncomfortable, with many commenting "I'm disgusted" and "I never want to drink it again."
As views continued to climb and the video's popularity surged rapidly, the poster immediately explained in the comments section that the video was filmed after the store closed using damaged materials, mimicking the recently viral "Indian milk tea" meme. The poster emphasized that an "entertainment" tag was added when uploading, explaining it was just a meme. However, this explanation did not earn netizens' forgiveness, and under public pressure, the poster eventually hastily deleted the video.
Meanwhile, netizens discovered that this was not the only Chagee employee who had posted similar meme content on the video platform. According to incomplete statistics, apart from the deleted video, at least three other Chagee employees from different regions had successively uploaded short clips mimicking "Indian street milk tea" on social platforms.
In addition, many users also noticed that besides Chagee, employees from well-known chain brands such as Luckin Coffee, Yidiandian, Grandpa's Tea, Guming, and ChaBaiDao had also posted "hand-made milk tea" meme videos. In these short clips accompanied by Indian music, milk tea employees mostly directly touched ingredients such as ice cubes, lemons, and pearls with their hands, producing cup after cup of drinks in ways that violated corporate operating standards.
Although these tea industry workers repeatedly emphasized that the videos were merely mimicking internet memes for self-entertainment, and stated that the drinks made in the videos would not be sold externally and had all been destroyed after filming, with some videos even labeled with warnings like "for entertainment only, please don't take seriously," the public still found it difficult to accept such "hand-made milk tea" content.
In most people's view, once the meme videos imitating Indian milk tea spread widely, consumers unfamiliar with the meme might take them at face value, thereby developing misunderstandings about the brand's image and the store's food safety conditions. Some also pointed out that since the video content involves beverage production processes, tea brand employees should not treat food safety as a joke or attract traffic by filming such entertainment staged videos.
Due to the high level of attention the incident received, multiple related topics successively appeared on Weibo's trending list. At noon today, Pear Video posted on Weibo that Chagee's official customer service had received relevant feedback and would forward it to a dedicated team for handling. A Chagee store management personnel stated that regarding the issue of non-compliant food safety operations and attention-grabbing marketing methods by a franchise store partner with an IP address showing Fujian, the company had immediately launched an investigation.
Shortly afterward, Chagee's official account published the "Investigation and Handling Notice Regarding the Online Video of 'Chagee Employee Operating with Bare Hands,'" stating that after internal verification, the video was filmed at a store in Fujian. Surveillance records showed that the employee, following the online "Indian milk tea" meme trend, used the store's damaged and discarded materials that day to stage the imitation video just before closing. The materials were poured out on the spot and were not sold externally. Afterward, to cover up the mistake, the employee falsely claimed it was done after closing hours.
The official statement pointed out that the employee's behavior seriously violated company regulations and crossed the bottom line of the brand's values, explicitly stating "when it comes to food safety, we absolutely do not allow entertainment-oriented treatment." The notice stated that the store involved would be indefinitely suspended for rectification starting immediately, until rectification is thoroughly completed and passes strict inspection. The employee involved was dismissed for serious disciplinary violations and integrity issues. The store manager and the regional supervisor were both demoted for dereliction of management and supervision duties.
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