Amid the wave of price cuts in new-style tea drinks, a cup of milk tea priced at 50 yuan is no longer common. However, on the opening day of Chayan Yuese's first store in Nanjing, scalpers were reselling cups for as much as 200 yuan, with people lining up as early as 4:30 a.m., and related topics quickly trended on Weibo. Due to excessive crowds and chaotic order, the Xinjiekou store posted a sold-out notice and closed its entrance just five minutes before its official opening, while the Jiangning Jingfeng store continued operating. Police dispatched officers to maintain order and persuade citizens to leave. On some trading platforms, proxy purchasing and queuing services appeared, priced between 10 and 200 yuan. The Nanjing Market Supervision Bureau made it clear that scalping is illegal. People's Daily Online called on consumers to treat internet-famous brands rationally and not be led by merchants and scalpers. [more…]

The recent collaboration between Heytea and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has sparked widespread attention, with the two parties combining polka dot art with the boba tea series under the theme "Add Some Boba to the World." This marks the first cross-industry collaboration between the 95-year-old Yayoi Kusama and a Chinese new-style tea beverage brand. Limited-edition merchandise such as mugs and metal keychains sold out quickly after launch, driving up prices in the secondary market. Some consumers turned to scalpers for proxy purchases, but questioned the contradiction between order times and store sold-out notices. Heytea employees responded to this, and the incident also reflects the scalper chaos behind the rush for tea beverage collaboration merchandise. [more…]

Chain coffee brands often attract loyal customers with membership discounts, and Mstand's black gold card 50% off benefit was once a reason for many consumers to keep spending. However, some members have discovered that to maintain their status, they need to accumulate spending of 6,000 yuan within a year, which translates to buying 316 discounted drinks to meet the threshold, while scalpers offering proxy orders on second-hand platforms can provide discounts as low as 15% off, and they have not been banned. What confuses members even more is that when they helped friends place proxy orders, they were banned by the system. When official membership discounts are far inferior to scalper prices, the appeal of the membership system is being tested. If the brand tacitly allows proxy orders to exist, will it lose more loyal users? [more…]

In recent years, coffee festivals and coffee markets have been held with great enthusiasm all over the country, becoming popular gathering spots for coffee lovers. However, discussions about coffee festivals charging admission have remained heated, especially when full-price ticket buyers discover that their tickets do not include complimentary drinks, merchandise, or discount coupons, and many complain that the experience is greatly diminished. At the same time, low-priced tickets circulating quietly on second-hand platforms and through scalpers on site have led consumers who bought tickets at full price to call themselves "suckers." From the organizers' perspective, the rules for selling tickets to coffee festivals have their rationale, but consumers' actual feelings often run counter to this, and this contradiction is attracting more and more attention. [more…]

Every year when Frappuccino粽子 hit the market, Starbucks stores enter a tough battle. Although the flavors have been improved this year, consumers' old impressions of the little zongzi still linger, and the pressure on frontline employees doubles. To meet sales targets, partners resort to all sorts of tricks—from buy-a-bag-get-a-zongzi-free, hand-drawn customizations, to exaggerated copywriting, and even paying out of their own pockets to subsidize. Meanwhile, scalpers have also set their sights on redemption vouchers, buying low and selling high, and the brand recently appears to be cracking down on violations. This article takes you through the panorama of sales surrounding Frappuccino zongzi. [more…]

On the day its first Nanjing store opened, Cha Yan Yue Se shot to the top of trending searches because of the sheer number of people queuing and scalpers driving the price up to 200 yuan a cup. The Xinjiekou store was forced to close, while the Jiangning Jingfeng store remained open. The brand revealed that it plans to open five stores in Nanjing in the future, while market regulators made clear that scalping on behalf of buyers is illegal. This article reviews Cha Yan Yue Se's expansion trajectory in cities such as Changsha and Shenzhen, compares it with the development paths of similar brands such as Nayuki, and explores the balancing challenge facing internet-famous tea drinks among quality control, supply chains, and consumer rationality. [more…]

Heytea has recently accelerated its overseas expansion, opening new stores in Toronto, Canada and Birmingham, UK one after another. The limited-edition city fridge magnets given away during the opening events quickly became a focal point. The Toronto store, even in the bitter cold of minus six to seven degrees Celsius, still attracted a large number of fans who queued for hours, while the free fridge magnets were somehow resold on the second-hand market for as much as 200 Canadian dollars (about 1,019 yuan), leaving many merchandise enthusiasts stunned. At the same time, the involvement of scalpers and proxy buyers made them even harder to get, and fans began suggesting that the brand sell the fridge magnets at a clearly marked price to balance demand and market order. This article will walk you through the lively scenes of Heytea's overseas store openings, the reasons behind the fridge magnet hype, and consumer feedback on this phenomenon. [more…]

Recently, a netizen posted on social media about an encounter at a Starbucks store with a middle-aged woman not wearing an apron who held up a QR code and demanded an order, even pressuring them with the remark, "Air conditioning isn't free, you know." The incident sparked heated discussion: Starbucks has long been known for its "third place" concept, allowing people to sit without making a purchase, so why did forced sales occur? Was the person involved a store partner offering extended services, or a scalper reselling coupons? Netizens engaged in fierce debate over whether Starbucks should unconditionally welcome all guests, how scalpers profit from the price difference, and whether staff collude with them. This article reconstructs the incident and the various viewpoints, exploring the boundaries between space management and consumption rules in coffee shops. [more…]

Lyu Liang, founder of Chayan Yuese, has repeatedly stated publicly that the brand is not unwilling to expand beyond Changsha, but rather fears that out-of-town expansion could lead to a survival crisis. However, Chayan Yuese has not only opened stores in Changde, but has also stepped beyond Hunan Province, entering the West China market and establishing a presence in Chongqing. On Children's Day, four Chongqing stores opened simultaneously, sparking enthusiastic pursuit among consumers in the mountain city, but controversy arose from day one: incidents such as three-hour queues, online orders requiring waits of over 24 hours, resold cups fetching nearly 500 yuan, and viewers being blocked in livestreams were exposed one after another. The brand subsequently responded to the markup reselling and livestream controversies. This article will sort through the sequence of events and include related information from Front Street Coffee. [more…]

The opening of two Tea Yanyuese stores in Nanjing triggered a queueing frenzy, forcing the closure of subway entrances and exits, drinks sold out in five minutes, scalpers reselling at high prices, and even riot police being called in to maintain order. Faced with questions over hiring people to queue and reselling hype, Tea Yanyuese issued an apology and promised purchase limits; however, two hours later Sina Finance published an investigative article pointing directly at the agency-buying queues as a premeditated false prosperity. Is this uproar down to brand appeal or marketing tricks? With the pandemic not yet subsided, what hidden dangers does gathering in queues bring? This article sorts through the whole incident and explores the queue economy and public order issues behind internet-famous tea brands. [more…]

Blue Bottle Coffee has officially announced the opening of its 9th store, located in Shenzhen MixC World, marking the brand's first entry into South China. The new store is designed by the Hong Kong young architect team COLLECTIVE, with the concept of "blue imagination related to the sea," incorporating the character of Shenzhen as a future city. The first floor of the store is the coffee preparation area, and the second floor is the customer enjoyment area, with varying shades of blue running through the bar, shelves, stairs, and tables and chairs. Most notably, the store launches the world's exclusive first blue dripper, which is only used and sold at the Shenzhen store. On the opening day, the queue once lasted up to two hours, and it returned to normal the next day. In addition, it is rumored online that Blue Bottle Coffee may enter Chengdu Taikoo Li and Xi'an MixC, and its expansion pace is worth watching. [more…]

Recently, Heytea launched a collaborative partnership with the popular game Genshin Impact, releasing themed products and merchandise, which sparked widespread attention among players and consumers. Previously, Genshin Impact's collaboration with Pizza Hut had caused stores to be packed, and this time Heytea built up hype in advance, with the official announcement of the event on September 5. However, some netizens expressed dissatisfaction with having to buy a whole case of juice tea to get a redemption code, as well as the relatively small number of merchandise rewards, considering the participation conditions to be rather harsh. Although general sales will be opened later, this collaboration still reflects the popularity and controversy of IP tie-ins in the food and beverage industry. This article reviews the course of the event and looks at the trend of cross-industry marketing by coffee and tea beverage brands, while also providing a professional communication channel for coffee enthusiasts. [more…]

Starbucks collaborated with Stayreal, the streetwear brand co-founded by Mayday lead singer Ashin and No2Good, to launch limited-edition merchandise, and the news immediately drew a large amount of fan attention. However, before the campaign had even officially started, social media exposed that employees at some stores had sold the not-yet-released co-branded glass cups in advance to acquaintances, and there were even reports of bundling the merchandise with Starbucks rice dumplings to meet performance targets. These actions sparked strong consumer dissatisfaction, with many demanding an official explanation. The brand later responded that it had internally instructed stores to strictly prohibit reserving items for themselves or bundling them, and had recovered the cups that were sold early. [more…]

Starbucks has long been known as a "cup factory," releasing themed cup designs for every season, holiday, or regional specialty, and many of its standout or limited-edition cups are eagerly sought after by fans. Recently, Starbucks' Spring Mountain pastoral series mugs, a collaboration with a Yunnan peasant painter, went viral online. The retro spring color palette, combined with the buzz around "Spring Mountain studies," made the cup attract attention as soon as preview images surfaced. However, after the official launch, a series of issues emerged one after another: each store was allocated only one cup, some stores required customers to buy additional items to qualify, and secondhand prices tripled overnight. The last-minute changes to purchasing rules also left many consumers disappointed, raising doubts about Starbucks' sincerity. [more…]

During the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Bing Dwen Dwen became a mascot pursued by the entire nation, and the craze of "one Dwen Dwen hard to find" spawned various homemade and commercial imitation behaviors. A Manner coffee shop in Shanghai was fined a thousand yuan by market regulators for making latte art coffee resembling Bing Dwen Dwen, sparking industry attention to the boundaries of commercial use of Olympic symbols. This article reviews the penalty details of the incident, the legal basis, and typical cases from the same period, helping coffee practitioners clarify the line between creative latte art and infringement, and avoid inadvertently crossing intellectual property red lines. [more…]

In recent years, dark-themed beverages marketed for their "black" appeal have proliferated in the food and beverage market, attracting many curious consumers with their unique appearance. However, such products may harbor food safety risks. Recently, the Market Supervision Bureau of Xuhui District, Shanghai, discovered during an inspection of a milk tea shop that its "Black Coconut Strawberry Milk" was unusually dark black in color. An investigation confirmed that the staff had illegally added "vegetable carbon black" during preparation. This act violated food additive usage standards, and the shop was ordered to rectify the issue and was penalized. Notably, the brand involved is none other than "Benz Tea," which went viral last year, with its first Hangzhou store setting a record of thousands queuing and scalpers reselling cups for as much as 300 yuan. This incident once again reminds us that creative beverages must also strictly adhere to safety bottom lines. [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…]

Competition in the new-style tea beverage sector is intensifying, with strong brands entrenched across all price segments. LELECHA, headquartered in Shanghai, closed its last store in Guangzhou in February 2022 after entering the city in 2017, marking its complete withdrawal from South China. Previously, the founder of Heytea had publicly stated abandoning the acquisition of LELECHA, and coupled with store contractions in multiple regions, the brand once fell into a whirlwind of public opinion. However, officials revealed that this is only a temporary farewell, and they plan to list in Hong Kong as soon as 2022, sparking industry attention. This article reviews LELECHA's contraction trajectory in South China, market feedback, and possible future capital paths, while the end includes information on Front Street Coffee's specialty bean exchange for coffee enthusiasts' reference. [more…]

Shanghai Mental Health Center has once again drawn attention by using coffee as a medium. This time, its co-branded coffee "Music + Spirit," launched in collaboration with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, quickly sold out after release. Not only did long lines form at the offline store, but online channels also announced they were out of stock, leaving consumers waiting for pre-sales. This special coffee blend incorporates chocolate powder and American cayenne pepper powder and is available only at the COFFEE CUBE coffee shop inside the symphony orchestra. The simultaneously launched archive-file handbag contains ten drip coffee bags from different regions, each with a QR code that allows listeners to hear ten symphonic works and audio interpretations by mental health experts on urban emotional issues such as workplace PUA and insomnia. This is another successful creative attempt by the center to break out of its niche after "No. 600 Mooncakes," reflecting the market trend in which coffee has become a daily necessity for urban young people. [more…]

After the first Hangzhou store of BONJOUR, a Suzhou milk tea brand, opened, its online ordering showed over a thousand cups in production ahead, with wait times often reaching seven to eight hours or even more than ten. Consumers posted screenshots of their orders, sparking heated debate: Is a cup of milk tea worth such a long wait? A reporter's visit found no long lines on site, but chaotic pickup and sold-out popular items. Some consumers admitted the taste was nothing special and they were just following the trend. Netizens questioned whether this was hunger marketing and suggested waiting for this "Hangzhou fad" to pass before trying. This article will explore the phenomenon and reflections behind this milk tea queue controversy. [more…]