A trending topic about food safety in milk tea shops has sparked widespread concern: The Market Supervision Administration of Fengxian District, Shanghai, conducted surprise inspections of several well-known milk tea stores in Baolong Plaza, and the results showed that all five brands—Yidian Dian, ChaBaiDao, 7FenTian, CoCo, and XiongJi—had problems, involving incomplete health certificates, chaotic raw material management, and unsanitary operating environments. The incident quickly surpassed 500 million views, with netizens exclaiming, "I dare not drink it anymore." At the same time, the article also reviewed food safety cases in recent years involving Burger King, 85°C, IKEA, and others, reminding the food and beverage industry that it must strictly abide by operating standards. [more…]

Since Heytea launched its Super Botanical Tea series, fruit and vegetable juice drinks have quickly gained popularity, with major brands rushing to follow suit. ChaPanda recently rolled out its "Super Veggie" series in 14 cities including Beijing and Shanghai, among which "Detox Wheatgrass" sparked heated discussion online because its main ingredient closely resembles cat grass and livestock feed. This drink pairs wheatgrass with fresh fruits such as apple, pineapple, and Shine Muscat grapes, and the company emphasizes that no concentrated juice is used. Consumers report that it tastes refreshing, but kitchen staff's workload has increased accordingly, while some customers have raised concerns about the food safety of fruit and vegetable juices. [more…]

Tea Baidao's classic mulberry fruit tea "Wu Qi Ma Hei" returns this year in an upgraded form, alongside the new release "Triple Berry Good Night Cup." The official promotion claims the new version focuses on freshly peeled and freshly squeezed same-day ingredients, with a stronger juicy pulp burst, and consumers are buying into it. However, for the workers in the store kitchens, this upgrade has turned into a nightmare—switching from frozen mulberry pieces to fresh mulberries turns one step into many, multiplying the prep difficulty and workload. Complaints flood social media, with employees exclaiming "peeling until crazy" and "prepping until insane." This article takes you behind the production changes and frontline employee feedback for this seasonal limited-edition drink. [more…]

After Tea Baidao's lychee iced milk was discontinued with the changing seasons, the brand quickly launched two new iced milk drinks, among which the iced mint iced milk co-branded with Frozen drew a lot of attention thanks to its mint element and co-branded merchandise. However, this drink, made with fresh mint leaves, green grapes, lemon, matcha liquid, and milk, did not deliver the expected cooling sensation upon tasting; instead, the grassy flavor of freshly squeezed mint juice sparked polarized reviews. Some described drinking it as turning into a cow chewing on grass, while others found the plant's fresh fragrance uniquely appealing. Whether this cross-boundary mashup is a stroke of creativity or a flop is worth investigating. [more…]

Recently, the new-style tea beverage brand ChaBaiDao has frequently made headlines due to "large foreign objects" appearing in its drinks. From "real spider milk tea" to nail clippers, and now the latest cockroach incident, consumer complaints have been continuous. These incidents coincide with ChaBaiDao's plan to go public in Hong Kong, sparking discussions about its food safety management and whether there are malicious claims. This article reviews the detailed process of the ChaBaiDao cockroach complaint, analyzes the disagreement between the consumer's claim of 1,000 yuan and the merchant's offer of only 200 yuan, and explores the potential issues of insufficient employee training and "loophole attacks" under the Food Safety Law amid the rapid expansion of chain brands. At the same time, we will also focus on the current state of food safety in the industry and provide professional information for coffee enthusiasts. [more…]

Recently, several tea beverage brands—including Heytea, Nayuki, ChaPanda, Good Tea, Mixue Bingcheng, and Shuyi Tealicious—were reported to have jointly adjusted their full-reduction strategies on food delivery platforms. The original full-reduction discounts have been uniformly changed to 1 off 50, 1 off 70, or even canceled outright. Once the news broke, related topics quickly trended on social media, with views exceeding 180 million. Merchants say profits are thin, while netizens question why milk tea, which isn't cheap, still isn't making money. Behind this controversy lie both the pressure of platform commissions and delivery costs, and a reflection of the difficult position of the new tea beverage industry, caught between price cuts and losses. [more…]

This summer, bucket-sized fruit teas quietly took over milk tea shop menus. From Heytea and Nayuki to ChaPanda and CoCo, major brands have rolled out 1-liter or even larger bucket drinks, attracting consumers with high cost-performance. Bucket tea drinks are nothing new—back in 2019, they went viral thanks to Jay Chou fan support, and in 2020 Nayuki even launched a 5-liter "mighty bucket." However, issues like the short optimal drinking window and rapid bacterial growth in bucket tea drinks cannot be ignored. From giant buckets to portable packs, what evolution has bucket tea drinks undergone? And why have this summer's bucket fruit teas made a comeback? This article will break it all down for you. [more…]

While Heytea, Nayuki, Starbucks, and Luckin are battling it out on the front lines over co-branded collaborations, new product launches, and price wars, few have noticed that a group of suppliers behind them is quietly rising. From Jiahe Foods to Sanyuan Biology, from Tianye Shares to Hengxin Life and Dexin Foods, an increasing number of raw material and packaging companies behind new-style beverages are beginning to sprint toward the capital market. Some of these companies provide non-dairy creamers and sugar substitutes, some supply fruit juice concentrates and flavored syrups, and others specialize in producing paper cups and plastic cups. While terminal brands fight in a red ocean, upstream suppliers have seized the momentum to grow bigger, raked in huge profits, and collectively embarked on the path to listing. [more…]

While brands like Heytea, Nayuki, Starbucks, and Luckin are fiercely battling it out in the end market—rolling out collaborations, launching new products, and cutting prices in turn—it is actually the ingredient and packaging suppliers behind them that are quietly making a fortune. From Jiahe Foods to Sanyuan Biology, from Tianye Co. to Hengxin Life, and on to Dexin Foods, a group of supply chain enterprises for the new-style beverage industry are collectively sprinting toward the capital market. They serve well-known brands such as Uni-President, Xiangpiaopiao, CoCo都可, Mixue Bingcheng, Genki Forest, Nayuki, and Luckin, and have achieved soaring performance through products such as sugar substitutes, juices, paper cups, and syrups. This article will sort through the listing landscape of these low-key suppliers and reveal the real path to riches for upstream enterprises under the wave of new consumption. [more…]

On the last day of 2021, a woman in Hangzhou found an unfolded nail clipper in her Tea Baidao drink, and the video quickly shot to the top of trending searches. Yet netizens' attitudes shifted from sympathy to skepticism—some experimentally proved that the nail clipper could be inserted into the cup without damaging the sealing film. Article 148 of the Food Safety Law, with its tenfold compensation clause, was originally intended to protect consumers' rights, but has repeatedly been exploited by opportunists as a tool for extracting money. Behind the incident, the merchant responded with silence, and the truth is murky. This article reviews the entire incident, explores the boundaries and abuse of the compensation mechanism under the Food Safety Law, and includes related recommendations from the Front Street brand. [more…]

Ordering a milk tea now, pudding, pearls, and grass jelly are already standard options. Thirty years ago, the earliest milk teas were far less elaborate. Starting from 1987, when Taiwan's Chun Shui Tang dropped tapioca pearls into milk tea, the matter of adding toppings has gone through a long process of being banned, recombined, cross-industry experimentation, and a rotating lineup of niche fruits. CoCo都可 combined pearls, pudding, and grass jelly into one drink, giving rise to the now-familiar "Milk Tea Three Brothers." Nowadays the direction of toppings has shifted again—lemon tea is actually more popular without toppings, and new faces like Yashixiang, bergamot, turmeric, and peach gum have appeared one after another. This piece reviews the key milestones in milk tea toppings and also shares some observations from Front Street Coffee on current tea beverage trends. [more…]

The food delivery platforms have once again kicked off a subsidy war, with Meituan and Alibaba distributing large numbers of milk tea redemption vouchers to users, triggering a collective surge in orders at chain stores such as Mixue Bingcheng, Chabaidao, Goodme, and Shanghai Auntie. On the night of July 5, orders flooded into tea beverage stores in many places like a tidal wave, receipt printers nearly collapsed, and employees kept busy from the evening shift until the early hours of the morning yet still could not clear the backlog of orders. Some stores urgently called back off-duty employees for support, while delivery riders and customers surrounded the stores so tightly that not a drop could get through. While consumers got milk tea for 0 yuan, the workers behind the counter experienced a night comparable to "doomsday." This game between platforms ultimately shifted the pressure onto the frontline tea beverage workers. [more…]

Recently, a news story about people receiving empty packages and plain water instead of milk tea when ordering takeout for memorial purposes has sparked widespread attention. The incident originated from a 21-year-old young man nicknamed "Fat Cat" who jumped into a river to take his own life due to a romantic dispute. Netizens from various places, sympathizing with his plight, spontaneously ordered takeout to be delivered to the Chongqing Yangtze River Bridge as a tribute. However, some of the takeout bags contained only empty packaging boxes and plain water disguised as milk tea, involving well-known chain brands such as Mixue Ice Cream & Tea and ChaBaiDao. Staff at the stores involved, believing remarks that "other stores are all sending empty packages," mishandled the orders, provoking consumer anger. Lawyers pointed out that this act infringes on consumers' right to be informed and constitutes consumer fraud. The brands have apologized and made rectifications one after another, and regulatory authorities have stepped in. Front Street Coffee reminds that under any circumstances, businesses should operate in good faith and respect every order. [more…]

Chabaidao recently announced that its highly popular Pai Pai Gan (ponkan orange) series from last year is officially returning, with two new drinks: Shushi Pai Pai Gan and Pai Pai Gang Shang Hua. The company emphasized that each cup of fruit tea is made with fresh ponkan orange pulp, insisting on genuine ingredients. The news delighted many longtime customers, but brought back memories for store employees of the terror of hand-peeling citrus last year. According to the recipe, staff must remove the segment membrane, pith, and white core from the pulp one by one, keeping only plump juice sacs—an extremely tedious prep process. During peak hours, peeling speed falls far short of consumption, and with this year's added tasks of washing tea, cutting fruit, squeezing grass juice, and cooking pearls, the staffing shortage has become even more acute. Some employees, at a loss, took it upon themselves to delist hard-to-make drinks to buy time for prep, while consumers hold differing views on whether the fine removal of white pith is truly necessary. [more…]

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 the drink, prompting netizens to exclaim they were "disgusted." Although the poster explained that the footage was filmed after closing hours using damaged inventory to mimic the "Indian milk tea" meme, public opinion did not subside. Subsequently, netizens discovered that employees of several other brands, including Luckin Coffee, Yidian Dian, and Goodme, had also posted similar meme videos. Chagee officially issued an urgent investigation notice, imposing an indefinite suspension and rectification on the store involved, dismissing the employee involved, and demoting managerial personnel. This article will review the sequence of events and responses from all parties, and explore the boundary between food safety and entertainment-oriented marketing in the tea beverage industry. [more…]

Milk tea has once again become a hot topic, this time because Guangdong's milk tea consumption has jumped to first place nationwide. Alipay's spring report shows that warmer weather has driven an overall 10% increase in milk tea consumption, with online orders from middle-aged and elderly groups surging by 25%. From the fact that southern provinces account for 80% of consumption to Guangdong residents drinking 2.5 more cups per week per person than those in the Northeast, the data behind this reflects the deep penetration of milk tea culture. This article will trace the thousand-year evolution of milk tea from Mongolian butter tea to Hong Kong-style and Taiwanese-style, and then to new-style tea drinks, analyze the capital layout and brand echelons under a market scale of hundreds of billions, and remind readers: although milk tea is good, do not be greedy. [more…]