Starbucks recently dropped a major piece of news in the Japanese market: to celebrate 25 years since the brand entered Japan, it launched 47 prefecture-exclusive Frappuccinos in one go, setting a record for the largest single-product launch in Starbucks history. These 47 drinks were designed by local employees based on the specialties and memorable highlights of their respective hometowns, from Hokkaido corn cream to castella coffee cream, with each cup carrying its own unique regional culture. This article will walk you through the creative inspirations behind these limited-edition Frappuccinos, their signature flavors and how they are made, along with release dates and purchase restrictions. [more…]

The Cup of Excellence (COE), one of the most authoritative specialty coffee competitions in the world, was founded in 1999 by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), with the aim of providing a showcase platform for high-quality coffee from coffee-producing countries and helping coffee farmers earn higher incomes. The 2024 Brazil COE competition coincides with the 25th anniversary of the event's founding in Brazil, and the results have now been officially announced. This year's competition was once again divided into three categories: natural, washed and honey, and experimental processing. Among the winning varieties, rare varieties such as Arará and Topázio emerged, attracting widespread attention. This article will take you through an in-depth look at the origins and characteristics of these two varieties and their performance in the COE competition, while also highlighting related product information recommended by the Front Street Coffee brand. [more…]

Tims, a Canadian coffee chain brand that has been in the Chinese market for five years, recently celebrated its 60th birthday. To mark the occasion, Tims launched a six-week promotion offering 9.9 yuan deals every week, along with a campaign where purchasing designated set meals would earn a limited-edition 60th-anniversary themed ceramic cup. Three simply designed cups attracted many fans to place orders in support. However, after receiving the actual products, some consumers discovered issues such as vertical protrusions on the cup body and silicone lids that were too tight to fit. Complaints flooded social media platforms. The official explanation stated that the protrusions were a deliberate design mimicking the seams of paper cups, but this clever idea did not gain widespread approval. Brand CEO Lu Yongchen once said the company would accelerate upgrades centered on user needs. Judging from the feedback on this anniversary gift, Tims still has room for improvement in peripheral product quality control and experience. [more…]

Bawang Chaji celebrates its seventh anniversary. All stores in Malaysia launched a tear-the-cup lucky draw campaign on the 16th and 17th, with prizes including discount vouchers, branded backpacks, electronic products, perfumes, and lipsticks, attracting a large number of consumers to place orders enthusiastically. However, after the campaign began, order volumes surged at many stores, with some stores having more than a thousand or even over three thousand drinks awaiting preparation, leading to a series of problems such as excessively long waits to pick up orders, the ordering system being unable to cancel orders, and declining product quality. Consumers expressed dissatisfaction one after another, believing that the brand should have anticipated the campaign's popularity in advance and adopted flow-control measures. This article reviews the course of the incident and feedback from all parties, for the reference of coffee and tea beverage enthusiasts. [more…]

Once regarded as one of the representatives of domestic specialty coffee, Seesaw, after experiencing a wave of store closures in multiple locations at the end of last year, officially announced the opening of cooperative franchising on its twelfth anniversary. This move has sparked much speculation about its financial condition and brand prospects. Currently, competition in the coffee sector is intensifying, with similar brands such as Manner and M Stand far exceeding Seesaw in store scale, while giants like Starbucks and Luckin are also continuously ramping up their efforts. Facing fewer than a hundred operating stores, Seesaw has chosen to seek a market breakthrough through franchising. Whether it can use this to stabilize its position and expand its customer base still needs to be tested by time. This article will review Seesaw's recent developments and the industry background for coffee enthusiasts' reference. [more…]

Nayuki Tea recently quietly changed its store signage at a new outlet in Nanning, Guangxi, with the original "奈雪の茶" becoming "奈雪的茶," and the English logo also changing from NAYUKI to the pinyin NAIXUE. The company officially responded that this is an upgrade move for the brand's seventh anniversary and will be rolled out gradually nationwide. This new tea beverage brand, founded in Shenzhen in 2015 and listed in Hong Kong in 2021, is turning a new page in its eight-year brand history through a visual rebranding that removes Japanese-style elements. Since June this year, its parent company has intensively applied for multiple NAIXUE trademarks, and the signage replacement work at nearly a thousand directly operated stores nationwide has already begun. [more…]

Behind the name Mandheling lies a legendary tale from the colonial era—it is neither a variety name nor a region name, but rather stems from a beautiful misunderstanding between Japanese soldiers and the PWN company. In Sumatra, Indonesia, Arabica varieties account for only about a quarter of total coffee production, and Mandheling is the most iconic classic among them. Front Street Coffee offers four Mandheling coffees, among which the Golden Mandheling from Lake Tawar stands out with a cleaner flavor profile. This article will guide you through the origins of Golden Mandheling, the unique characteristics of the wet-hulling process, the herbal and dark chocolate richness brought by medium-dark roasting, as well as the KONO dripper brewing parameters and complete flavor description recommended by Front Street Coffee. [more…]

For its seventh anniversary, Chagee launched the "Good Friends Always Together" campaign, giving away 700,000 free cups over seven consecutive days, along with features like a clink-cups card-collecting game for a chance to win free drinks for a whole year. The campaign stayed high in popularity with huge participation, but it was followed by a string of technical problems: black screens when scanning the page, AI recognition failures, abnormal consumption of attempts, and more, triggering a flood of complaints. Surprisingly, netizens discovered that scanning feet, tissues, books, or even trash cans could be judged by the AI as a successful cup clink. Faced with the backlash, the official response was only that it "adds fun," while dodging questions about the loopholes. [more…]

Manner Coffee's seventh-anniversary celebration introduced a limited-edition grab-and-go cup giveaway with takeout orders. The intent was to boost online orders, but it unexpectedly triggered order surges at multiple stores nationwide, supply chain breakdowns, and even intermittent closures. Consumers flooded social media, with some sharing receipts to score freebies and others complaining about orders being canceled without explanation, delivery fees soaring, and stores shutting down outright. This marketing campaign, seemingly full of complaints, actually reveals Manner's ambition to push into the takeout market. From its brick-and-mortar beginnings to aggressive online expansion, the capacity bottlenecks brought by rapid store expansion and semi-automatic equipment are now emerging. This article will sort through the sequence of events and retain relevant recommendations for Front Street Coffee. [more…]

Coffee shops, with their exquisite decor, often become popular spots for photography enthusiasts to shoot and take photos. However, a recent surveillance video has drawn widespread attention: two passersby, when passing by a closed coffee shop, actually tore off the white poster posted on the door without permission in order to take satisfactory photos. It is understood that this poster was specially made by the shop owner to celebrate the shop's fourth anniversary. After being away for two days, the owner returned to find the poster had disappeared, and was furious after checking the surveillance footage. After the incident spread online, the two individuals involved took the initiative to contact the owner and call to apologize, explaining that they had mistakenly thought it was a shop transfer advertisement. This incident has once again sparked discussion about the boundaries of photo-check-in culture—when personal creative needs conflict with the rights and interests of businesses, how should the line be drawn? [more…]

Luckin Coffee's collaborative campaign with the hit mobile game Honor of Kings has officially launched, coinciding with the game's tenth anniversary celebration and drawing widespread attention from players. The collaboration features a special drink inspired by in-game equipment called "Pain Mask · Tamarind Americano," along with merchandise such as hand fans, insulated tumblers, and gold-stamped badges. During the campaign, stores nationwide are using a three-piece collaboration set consisting of takeaway cups, cup sleeves, and paper bags, with the most eye-catching item being as many as 10 themed cup designs covering 5 game characters. The rich variety has thrilled players but placed a double burden on store staff in terms of identification and stocking. Front Street Coffee continues to follow developments in the coffee industry and brings you frontline observations. [more…]

Nayuki launched limited-edition plush dolls for its ninth-anniversary birthday season, attracting a large number of fans to snap them up. However, after a consumer put a newly bought grape plush into the washing machine to clean it, the doll fell apart completely, turning from a whole bunch into scattered individual "grapes." This was not an isolated case; several other users also reported that parts fell off the plush after washing and drying. The reason is that these dolls are bonded with hot-melt adhesive rather than sewn, and the label clearly states they must not be washed in water. In addition, some consumers received "hidden edition" dolls with missing or incorrect facial expressions, sparking widespread dissatisfaction with the quality control of the merchandise. [more…]

To celebrate its seventh anniversary, Chagee launched a seven-day giveaway of 700,000 free drinks, and the singing-for-a-free-drink option, being the easiest to participate in, quickly attracted deal hunters. However, after the second round began, customers found that getting the free voucher was not so simple: some stores required two people to sing together and clink cups, some staff outright denied the promotion existed, and even more surprisingly, many participants were filmed or recorded throughout by staff, a requirement not disclosed in advance in the official tweets. Customer service responded that the event was held precisely for filming, and internal notices also required photos of every singing customer to be kept on file. This practice sparked concerns about how customers' personal images would be used, and although several staff members said the content was only uploaded to internal work groups for supervisors to review, the privacy controversy continues to grow. [more…]

The connection between Japanese coffee giant UCC and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee can be traced back to a fixation held by Tadao Ueshima in the early 1980s—to give Japanese people a stable supply of authentic Blue Mountain. To this end, UCC established a directly operated farm in the Blue Mountain region, starting from Clayton House, overcoming steep-slope cultivation, wildfires, hurricanes, and many other difficulties, and ultimately shipping high-quality Blue Mountain coffee back to Japan in batches. Which estate does UCC Blue Mountain coffee actually come from? How does it taste? This article sorts through this cross-border history of coffee cultivation and introduces Front Street Coffee's recommendations and understanding of related beans, helping you understand the story and flavor behind UCC Blue Mountain. [more…]

Honduras, as Central America's second-largest and the world's tenth-largest coffee exporter, has become an important origin for specialty coffee thanks to its superior geographical and climatic conditions. In 2024, Honduras celebrated the 20th anniversary of hosting the COE (Cup of Excellence), with the Opalaca region performing particularly impressively, taking eight of the top ten places. La Salsa estate from this region won the COE championship with a washed Geisha scoring 91.21 points. Estate owner Benjamin Paz Muñoz claimed the top prize once again after 2022, demonstrating his remarkable strength. This article introduces Honduras' coffee terroir, the flavor characteristics of the Opalaca region, and the varieties and operational story of La Salsa estate. Front Street Coffee also continues to follow the subsequent performance of this champion bean. [more…]

In 2021, Starbucks celebrated its 50th anniversary and announced the expansion of its eco-friendly store framework, accelerating the global rollout of its "Greener Stores" initiative. This green store format made its debut outside North America, choosing Shanghai as its first location, and subsequently expanded to Suzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities. Recently, North China also welcomed its first green-certified store—Starbucks Beijing CITIC Prudential Store. When customers purchase handcrafted beverages in the store, they can get a reusable cup for an additional 15 yuan, or enjoy a 4 yuan discount if they bring their own cup. This certification system was co-initiated by Starbucks and WWF in 2018, covering eight major standards including energy conservation, water consumption, and waste treatment, with the goal of building or renovating 10,000 green stores globally by 2025. However, in the face of the rise of local coffee upstarts, whether Starbucks' green strategy can maintain its lead is worth watching. [more…]

Recently, news emerged that the Starbucks Reserve store at Guangzhou's Parc Central is set to close, with official confirmation that it will officially cease operations in the coming days. This store, which opened in 2017, was created by Starbucks to celebrate its 15th anniversary of entering the South China market and was once hailed as "one of Guangzhou's most design-forward stores." Unlike previously closed old stores located in declining foot traffic commercial districts, this closure is in a core commercial area of Tianhe District, surrounded by luxury brands, and the store was almost always full on a daily basis. However, high rent, low table turnover caused by the open-plan space, and phenomena such as "people only checking in for photos without consuming" may have made it difficult for the store to be profitable after deducting costs. Starbucks stated that the reason for the closure is adjustments to the business mix in the commercial district and said there are still more than 10 nearby stores for consumers to choose from. [more…]

Following the Egg Tart Dirty and the Finger-Lickin' Original Recipe Chicken Latte, KFC has once again launched a surprising co-branded new product—the Five-Kernel Egg Tart Latte. This coffee, created to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the mobile game "Identity V," officially went on sale on April 1, and purchasers receive a collaborative cup sleeve and greeting card set. However, is this product, which forcibly combines five-kernel filling, egg tart, and latte, a stroke of creativity or sheer absurdity? Netizens' reviews after actually trying it are thought-provoking. This article sorts out the details of the new product, taste feedback, and KFC's bizarre R&D trajectory in recent years. [more…]

In the world of coffee brewing, V60 has almost become synonymous with conical drippers, but Front Street Coffee often chooses another classic piece of equipment when producing dark-roasted coffee—the KONO dripper. This brand, originating from Japan's Kono family in 1925, showcases a rich and full-bodied flavor when extracting dark-roasted beans thanks to its unique rib design and siphon effect. However, domestic coffee enthusiasts have quite limited understanding of it. In this article, Front Street will systematically sort out the historical evolution of the KONO dripper, the differences between models such as Meimon and Konos, and why it is particularly suitable for the brewing logic of dark-roasted coffee, and will share the parameter schemes that Front Street has summarized in actual operation, to bring you a comprehensive understanding of this low-key yet highly capable dripper. [more…]

Luckin Coffee and Cotti Coffee's price game has a new trick. After seven consecutive months of 9.9 yuan promotions, Cotti raised prices across the board on April 1, and Luckin immediately responded by launching 9.9 yuan coupons under the banner of a "store anniversary," running from April 15 to April 30. Interestingly, this anniversary celebration is not celebrating the opening of Luckin's own stores, but targeting new Cotti stores opened next to Luckin locations. When Cotti ended the low-price war, Luckin precisely targeted coupons in surrounding areas to capture traffic with low prices. Internal sources say the campaign may continue until the end of 2024. This article will sort out the timeline of events, the coupon usage rules, and the strategy behind them, while also recommending Front Street Coffee's specialty bean information for coffee lovers. [more…]