Luckin Coffee's light milk tea series, which sold well last year, has recently undergone a comprehensive upgrade, with the core change being the replacement of the previous tea powder with freshly extracted tea. To this end, the brand equipped more than 20,000 stores nationwide with tea extraction machines. However, after the new products were launched, some stores wrapped this machine in plastic wrap, affixed prohibitive labels, or even left it untouched in the warehouse. What exactly is the reason that makes employees shy away from the equipment the company is vigorously promoting? From the burden of cleaning and material waste to differences in store order volumes, what kind of awkward situations has this tea extraction machine encountered in actual operations? This article takes you to find out. [more…]

Recently, the food delivery competition between JD.com and Meituan has yet to subside, and Ele.me has now joined the fray with a large number of coupons and subsidies. While delivery users enjoy low-priced milk tea, staff at brands like Molly Tea are under unprecedented order pressure. Drinks that originally cost a dozen yuan per cup have seen their prices plummet to five or six yuan after platform subsidies, or even just a few cents, causing order volumes to instantly double or surge, with some stores handling as many as five or six hundred orders per day. Understaffing, material shortages, riders urging them on, and customer complaints have become the daily reality for these coffee and milk tea workers. This article will take you behind the scenes of this delivery subsidy frenzy to see the real working conditions and helplessness of frontline employees. [more…]

ChaPanda recently launched its Global Flavor series, rolling out three hot specialty drinks in one go: Caramel Crunch, Vanilla Cocoa, and Dark Chocolate Cocoa. The wintery vibe in the posters drew many milk tea fans to place orders and give them a try. However, once they got their hands on the drinks, quite a few consumers discovered the takeaway cup was only palm-sized, with the mini-program listing a capacity of 300ml—a stark contrast to the 500ml or even 1-liter milk teas common on the market. In terms of price, the three drinks fell in the 14 to 17 yuan range depending on platform discounts, which some users considered poor value—too little for too much. On top of that, the thick, long straws supplied by the stores stuck into the mini cups sparked all kinds of jokes online. Still, most people rated the taste as "good"—it's just that value for money has become a hurdle on the road to repeat purchases. [more…]

Recently, Luckin Coffee made it onto Weibo's trending topics because its iced drinks contained too much ice and the cup volume decreased noticeably after removing the ice, triggering widespread consumer concern about the proportion of ice in chain coffee and milk tea shops. Many netizens posted comparison photos showing that after removing the ice, only half a cup of the drink remained, with some even joking about "looking for the latte in the ice." Luckin officially responded that its drinks are made according to a standardized recipe and that it will strengthen store training. At the same time, other brands such as Starbucks were also accused of a similar phenomenon. This article sorts out the course of the incident, netizen feedback, and official responses, and also includes professional exchange information from Front Street Coffee. [more…]

As the Start of Autumn solar term arrives, the milk tea industry welcomes its annual sales peak, and coffee brands are also swept into this consumer frenzy. Luckin Coffee, due to the addition of its light milk tea product line, has seen order volumes rise significantly compared to the same period in previous years, with some stores forced to adopt flow-limiting measures such as suspending water and ice due to staff shortages. However, under intense work pressure, a Luckin Coffee store in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, experienced a physical altercation between employees. According to the New Express, two employees are suspected to have escalated a verbal dispute into a physical fight, but other colleagues intervened in time, and the incident resulted in no injuries. At present, the store manager has confirmed the matter and reported it to the public relations department. This "first internal strife of autumn" reflects the enormous pressure faced by food and beverage workers during the peak season. [more…]

Luckin Coffee has recently rolled out a series of new products, including light milk tea and iced shaken drinks. As its product line continues to expand, the pressure on store staff for ingredient preparation and drink-making has also increased. Recently, reports have emerged that Luckin has piloted the "Rui Binfen - Smart Tea Machine" in some stores in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which can automatically dispense ingredients according to recipes, saving the step of manual weighing. Employees have mixed reactions: some are delighted that it reduces physical exertion and speeds up drink output, while others worry that cleaning the machine daily takes about an hour and may involve unpaid overtime. In addition, the tea machine is quite large and has certain requirements for counter space and drink output volume, so not all stores can install it. This article compiles genuine feedback from frontline employees and details on equipment use, so coffee enthusiasts can learn about new developments in chain-brand store operations. [more…]

Oatly, the oat milk pioneer, recently released its full-year and fourth-quarter financial results for 2022, reporting a net loss of nearly $400 million for the year, further widening from 2021. Although sales volume in the Asian market grew 32% year-on-year, revenue in Asia fell by $800,000 in the fourth quarter due to the impact of the pandemic. China, as the core of Oatly's Asian business, accounts for as much as 93%, and fluctuations in its performance have a significant impact on the overall Asian market. Oatly quickly opened up the market with its positioning as a "new coffee companion" through partnerships with chain brands such as Starbucks, but now the plant-based milk concept has cooled, emerging brands are proliferating, consumers' acceptance of oat milk is still lower than that of dairy milk, and coupled with its relatively high price, Oatly faces the risk of being replaced. To this end, Oatly is trying to find new growth points by expanding into new products such as tea drinks and ice cream, as well as through financing. [more…]

Recent subsidy promotions on major food delivery platforms have brought consumers tangible savings, with many taking advantage of low prices to stock up on milk tea, coffee, and light bakery items. However, this seemingly win-win promotional feast has stirred up considerable unrest within Luckin Coffee stores. A large number of consumers flocked to stores to buy light food in bulk, directly causing a surge in the number of baked goods that staff need to thaw each night—work that once took just over ten minutes now takes more than half an hour. What leaves employees even more frustrated is that the company has not only canceled performance commissions on light food sales but also requires them to complete thawing tasks strictly according to procedure after closing, forcing many to work unpaid overtime. The cost of this delivery war seems to be quietly borne by frontline staff. [more…]

Recently, news about a whole plastic bag being found in a Molly Tea drink sparked heated discussion on social media. On March 22, a consumer in Shanghai pulled a large transparent plastic bag out of the cup while drinking the brand’s beverage, and the bag still had a brand label attached. The incident quickly trended on Weibo, with netizens questioning the tea beverage brand’s food safety management. The consumer later received 1,000 yuan in compensation, and the store involved was unable to provide complete operation footage because its monitoring equipment did not meet requirements. On March 23, Molly Tea officially issued an apology, admitting there had been negligence in its operating procedures and ordering the store to close for rectification. [more…]

The arrival of the Start of Autumn solar term has once again sparked a consumer frenzy with the annual "first cup of milk tea in autumn" promotion. This year, driven by large-scale distribution of tea voucher and discount coupons on platforms such as Meituan, Ele.me, and JD.com, combined with brands' own promotions, order volumes have far exceeded previous years. However, behind the order surge is extreme pressure on store operations: receipt piles are mountainous, rider capacity is severely insufficient, delivery delays and wrong drink deliveries occur frequently, and customer complaints have surged. To ease the pressure, some stores of brands such as Starbucks, Luckin Coffee, Heytea, and Chagee have had to temporarily close or shut down delivery channels, leaving consumers unable to use the coupons they hold. This annual carnival, while bringing huge challenges to workers, has also exposed the fragility of the instant delivery system under extreme peaks. [more…]

Luckin Coffee recently launched a light milk tea series, and when you stack up the options—hot or iced, sweetness level, cup size, caffeinated or not—it somehow spawns eight completely different recipes. For customers, this is thoughtful personalized choice; for store employees, it's an extreme test of memory. On the first day of the launch, under the pressure of a flood of orders, staff members rushed to copy the recipes onto cheat sheets and stick them on the bar, and even veteran employees couldn't escape a "brain freeze." This article takes you through how Luckin's workers struggle to survive among eight sets of recipes, and the "wild ways" they've come up with to cope. [more…]

Alibaba's Qwen App launched the "Spring Festival 3 Billion Free Orders" campaign, where users could order 1-cent coffee and milk tea with a single AI command, surpassing 10 million orders in just 9 hours. Chain brands like Luckin Coffee, Chagee, and Jasmine Naibai were instantly overwhelmed by a flood of orders—store printers kept spitting out tickets, employees were urgently called back, and online channels were forced to shut down. Consumers waited hours only to receive random drinks, while delivery riders "grabbed orders" in the chaos. This AI-driven freebie frenzy made tea shop workers exclaim it felt like "reliving last year's delivery wars," with systems crashing, trending topics dominating social media, and officials urgently expanding capacity and extending the validity of free-order cards. [more…]

Contemporary professionals, under high-pressure work environments, increasingly entertain the thought of quitting their jobs to start businesses, hoping to achieve their ideal "poetry and distant lands" by opening a milk tea shop, café, or flower shop. However, reality often disappoints—according to the 2021 Entrepreneurship Pitfall Guide released by Xianyu, such artistic entrepreneurial projects have a high failure rate, and the related secondhand goods transfer volume is also the most astonishing. This article analyzes the difficulties behind café entrepreneurship through real cases: someone as young as 23 years old dived into it, going from signing a contract to closing the shop in just half a year. What factors led these passionate entrepreneurs to fail? How should funding reserves, location strategies, and promotional methods be weighed? Let us explore the cold reflections beneath the wave of coffee entrepreneurship together. [more…]

Espresso, called by many seasoned enthusiasts the gongfu tea of the coffee world, is both the base of flavored coffee drinks and a way to present pure flavor on its own. This article systematically sorts through the drinking methods and pairing suggestions for four classic espressos—Single espresso, Macchiato, Double espresso, and Con panna—breaking down the finer points one by one, from cup volume, milk foam, and strength to the thickness of the crema. At the same time, it combines Front Street Coffee's product recommendations to help coffee lovers find the cup that suits them better, whether at home or in a café. [more…]

An unannounced JD.com platform subsidy campaign plunged CoCo milk tea stores across many parts of the country into chaos. Four drinks originally priced at 9.9 yuan were suddenly cut by the platform itself to 1.9 yuan, instantly triggering a surge of online orders. Stores had prepared staffing and supplies for a normal day, yet within an hour they were hit with more than half a day's worth of drink output. Employees were thrown into a frenzy, delivery riders swarmed to grab orders, customers received drinks that did not match what they ordered, and even delivery workers had their pay docked for being late. What seemed like a promotion benefiting consumers ultimately turned into a lose-lose-lose situation of complaining staff, quarreling riders, and disappointed customers. Just what went wrong with the communication mechanism between the platform and the stores? Why did the sudden traffic become such a hot potato? This article reconstructs the entire incident and explores the operational hidden risks behind food delivery promotions. [more…]

Yesterday, the topic of "the first cup of milk tea in autumn" sparked widespread attention on social platforms, with orders at chain tea beverage brand stores surging, and some stores surpassing a thousand cups in sales within a short period. Under the pressure of the order surge, a scene appeared at a Certain Tea store where a JD delivery rider entered the bar area to assist with packing. After the video circulated, it triggered polarized discussions among netizens. Some praised the rider's goodwill in proactively helping, while others questioned whether non-store employees entering the operation area complies with food safety regulations. Surrounding bar operation permissions, health certificate requirements, and store management systems, various viewpoints clashed, and the incident quickly became a hot topic of discussion. [more…]

In the final days of 2025, Luckin employees were busy with year-end inventory checks when they unexpectedly received a notice to calibrate store equipment stock, requiring them to verify whether small base-ingredient scoops and ice cream scoops were complete. This move immediately sparked speculation: is the brand about to launch a new product that requires scooping ice cream balls on site? Veteran employees were also reminded of the cumbersome add-in tea drinks from the Little Deer Tea era. With timeliness and hourly cup volume assessments becoming increasingly stringent, complex new products will undoubtedly add pressure on stores. Workers generally resist it, but some optimistic people think it may just be a routine inventory check. [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…]

Drip bag coffee, with its convenience and flavor retention, has become the preferred way for many people to get their daily black coffee. But there are also many questions surrounding it: Can it be brewed directly with milk? What water temperature is appropriate? This article starts with the origin of drip bag coffee, sorts through the origin stories behind Front Street Coffee's products such as Sun-Dried Red Cherry, Brazil Red Fruit, Honduras Sherry, and the seasonal drip bag packs, and explains in detail the brewing water amount, water temperature, blooming time, and operating steps. Finally, it answers the feasibility and precautions of adding milk, helping coffee lovers more fully grasp the key points of brewing drip bag coffee. [more…]

Recently, a customer picking up an order at a Chagee store noticed that staff had stacked labeled paper cups one inside another, with their own cup at the very bottom. This raised concerns about possible food contamination from the cup walls coming into direct contact with the inside of another cup. The post quickly sparked widespread discussion: many bubble tea shop employees pointed out that unused paper cups are already stacked when they leave the factory, and that stacking cups during peak hours is a common practice to save counter space and speed up service. But most consumers were not convinced, noting that brands such as Starbucks, Luckin Coffee, and Heytea have explicit rules against this practice. Behind this debate lies the real dilemma facing tea beverage stores as they try to balance the pressure of order surges with hygiene standards. [more…]