Will the new coffee be the next crazy new tea?

Whenever a hot summer comes, it is the peak of beverage consumption. There is nowhere to hide from the hot sun, only a delicious and cold drink can bring a trace of comfort. On the streets at the weekend, most of the young people who go shopping have a cup of tea or coffee. If you pay close attention to the price trends between the two over the past two years, you can find that in the same beverage industry, new tea and coffee are two completely different paths of development.

Xi Cha, the representative of the new tea race track, has shown a downward trend in the rate of store expansion since 2021, and since February this year, Xi Tea has announced that the pricing of its products has said goodbye to the era of 30 yuan. focus on the promotion of new products at the middle price (about 15 yuan). Subsequently, Naixue tea and Lele tea brands, which also pay attention to the high-end new tea market, have also adjusted the pricing of their products.

Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee chain giant, experienced financial fraud in 2020, and many people thought Luckin Coffee was going to be cool. After two years, Luckin Coffee made his first profit in the first quarter of 2022, with more coffee shops than Starbucks in China.

The increase in Luckin Coffee's income stems from Ruixing's continuous store expansion strategy, and its profit is mainly brought about by the increase in unit price. In the third quarter of 2021, the average selling price of Luckin Coffee's drinks was 15.2yuan (calculated by the quarterly results), an increase of 5.50 yuan compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.

The coffee track is so hot that it has brought industry giants such as Huawei, Li Ning and China Post to cut in halfway to speed up the inner roll of the track. However, compared with the same inner volume of the new tea track, the price of coffee drinks has risen instead of falling. While Lucky's unit price has risen, Starbucks is also raising the price of its products.

Commodity price fluctuation is the "barometer" of market positioning. In other words, the increase in the unit price of coffee drinks is due to the rising valuation of coffee drinks in the minds of consumers, while the reduction in the price of new tea drinks is tantamount to a decline in the status of the drink in the eyes of young people.

The reason for this phenomenon is that there are scenes of "drinking coffee" and "going to a coffee shop" in a large number of film and television works, while new tea drinks appear much less frequently in film and television works. As the seventh art, film and television works not only bring audiovisual comprehensive image enjoyment to the moviegoers, but also have a certain imperceptible influence on the behavior of the audience.

However, the new coffee led by Luckin Coffee is moving towards the road of milk tea. in addition to coffee and milk, common ingredients of milk tea such as cheese, matcha and syrup with various flavors also appear frequently in coffee drinks. Classic coffee accounts for less and less, more and more new coffee products, "watermelon latte", "meteorite thick milk latte", coffee cups are added not only fruit-flavored syrup, but also milk tea grains such as black sugar-flavored crystal balls. Milk as a classic coffee companion is also replaced with prepared milk milk.

At the beginning, the new tea race track, which was expensive as a "sweet cake", new brands appeared frequently, brand financing events occurred frequently, the amount of financing remained high, and the price of a single cup even exceeded more than 40 yuan. Nowadays, new coffee takes the place of new tea, and with the emergence of all kinds of "creative" drinks, new coffee brands are springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Even the new tea giant Xi Cha has frequently invested in coffee brands, and the price of coffee per cup has risen again and again.

Is it possible that the new coffee is taking the old road of irrationally invading new tea step by step?

Photo Source: Internet

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