Main Content
1. Milk-Tea-ization Trend of Product Forms
- Milk foam, syrup, tapioca, taro balls and other milk tea ingredients appear on coffee menus
- After Luckin launched the iconic hit “Coconut Latte” in 2021, other brands quickly followed
2. Market Share Data
| Brand | Milk-coffee Ratio | Signature Products |
|---|---|---|
| Luckin | 65% | Coconut Latte, Velvet Latte |
| Starbucks | 62% | Caramel Macchiato, Vanilla Latte |
| Manner | 63% | Osmanthus Latte, Orange Peel Latte |
- Milk-coffee products account for approximately 60% of chain coffee brand menus
- Latte products have the highest proportion, nearly 40%
3. Catering to Mass Tastes
- Approximately 95% of domestic consumers cannot accept the bitterness of pure Americanos or espressos
- Brands innovate from five dimensions: coffee base, flavor syrup, toppings, milk foam series, coffee bean blending
4. Standardization and Fast-Food Production
- Using fully automated coffee machines, 25 seconds to complete single cup
- Shorten extraction time, use coarser grinding
- Use UHT sterilized milk instead of fresh milk, commercial-grade coffee beans reduce costs
5. Premium Coffee Persistence
- Brands like %Arabica, Seesaw, Blue Bottle insist on quality
- Emphasize single-origin coffee beans, precise roasting, professional brewing
- Only account for 12% of market, but annual growth rate maintains approximately 25%
Conclusion
Coffee beverage-ization is both localization adaptation and commercial compromise to traditional coffee culture. Traditional coffee enthusiasts see this as compromise to coffee’s true flavor, while market practitioners view it as an inevitable evolution of coffee culture democratization.