Why Is the New Luckin Coffee Persimmon Drink So Divisive?

Luckin Coffee's collaboration with the Line Friends puppy IP, the limited-edition Double Persimmon Fruit Tea, has split early buyers. The drink pairs seasonal fire gourd persimmon with jasmine tea and drew a rush of orders at launch, but many first customers report an obvious astringent taste that makes it hard to swallow, and some now discourage friends from buying it.

The name is a homophone for 'good things come in pairs,' and the limited-edition drop pushed fans to order quickly through Luckin's mini-program. The backlash has since become a talking point in China's coffee culture scene, with debate over whether the astringency comes from persimmon skin that was not fully removed or from batch-to-batch differences in preparation.

Luckin Coffee has recently teamed up again with the popular IP Lines Dog to launch a limited-edition drink, "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea," featuring seasonal fire gourd persimmons paired with jasmine tea as its selling point. As soon as the new product launched, it attracted a large number of fans to snap it up. However, feedback from the first wave of consumers has been mixed, with many complaining that it tastes astringent and hard to swallow, and even discouraging friends around them. Why exactly has this co-branded fruit tea sparked such polarized reviews? Is it because the persimmon skin was not fully removed, or because of batch differences? This article compiles views from all sides to help you understand the real performance of this trending new product.

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Recently, Luckin Coffee officially announced another collaboration with the well-known IP Lines Dog, launching the co-branded limited-edition drink "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea." The name of this new product is a homophone for "good things come in pairs," and as soon as it hit the market it quickly drew attention and discussion from fans everywhere.

It is reported that "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea" uses seasonal fire gourd persimmons as its raw material, blended with jasmine tea. When drinking it, you can suck up soft, glutinous, sweet persimmon pulp. For people who love persimmon flavor, this new product precisely hits their preference, and with its limited-edition event status, as soon as the official mini-program was updated, many consumers could not wait to place orders and try it.

However, after receiving the drink, the first customers who bought "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea" posted one after another on social platforms saying that their original full expectations were shattered the moment they took the first sip. They also reminded relatives and friends to be cautious about buying it, and suggested that fans who want to collect the full set of co-branded merchandise should try to avoid this new product when choosing designated bundles.

The "post-drink reviews" gradually appearing on social media left those who had not yet tried it confused, but soon, after they tasted the new product freshly made by Luckin staff, they immediately understood why so many people who had tried it regarded "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea" as a scourge. The root cause is that this persimmon fruit tea has an overly obvious astringent sensation upon entering the mouth.

According to the formula disclosed by Luckin employees, the ingredients of "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea" are not complicated, containing only jam made from seasonal fire gourd persimmons, jasmine tea, and original syrup. But some netizens reported that although the persimmon jam used in this new product contains real fruit pulp particles, it is also mixed with persimmon skin.

In most people's understanding, when eating persimmons, the skin should be thoroughly peeled so that it does not feel astringent or numb the tongue when eaten. Although Luckin's new product strives to retain the original flavor, blending fire gourd persimmons together with skin and flesh as a raw material indeed exceeds most people's expectations. Therefore, some speculated that the main reason the newly launched "Double Persimmon Fruit Tea" was rated as "too dry and astringent in taste" is that the persimmon skin was not removed cleanly.

Although most online comments about Luckin's persimmon fruit tea say it is "so astringent it is hard to swallow," and some joke that "it feels like all the unsellable astringent persimmons nationwide were supplied to Luckin" and "one sip takes a whole day to recover from," there are still some unconvinced netizens who insist on challenging it themselves.

They believe it may be that there are differences in the batches of jam used in different regions, or that the drink they bought happened to be made according to the official ratio, so it only tasted slightly astringent and was not as hard to drink as others described. They feel that Luckin's new product is a case of "radishes and greens, each to their own taste."

Image source: Internet

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