Starbucks' new products are complained of "smelly feet". Why is coffee innovation so difficult?

Why are there an endless stream of popular new tea products, while coffee is always the "classic" of lattes, mochas and cappuccinos?

Carmen | Menson, from Shanghai

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A few days ago, Starbucks launched three new products, "Coconut Ice Shake Coffee, Sea Salt Honey macchiato, and Lavender Earl Grey Tea Latte", which were accidentally complained by netizens about "bad taste", "detergent smell" and "doubt life after drinking". Some people even viciously describe it as "smelly feet".

▲ netizens complain about shaking coffee with coconut ice

Then again, Starbucks is one of the few brands in the coffee industry that have the ability to make "online celebrity" products.

For example, caramel macchiato, Frappuccino and Frappie are the "new products" that Starbucks launched a few years ago and sold well.

However, if you think about it carefully, it seems that in recent years, there are really no other new coffee products in the coffee industry, which can be described as "popular style".

Although "nitrogen coffee" and "beer + coffee" have also invaded your eyeballs, it is obvious that they have not exploded in the market or left a deep impression on consumers.

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Not long ago, "Ka Men" joined Meituan Dianping to establish the "Beverage big data Center". In our upcoming first issue of industry data report, there is a ranking like this:

The most popular product in ▲ coffee world is still "classic".

This is the ranking of the number of coffee purchased online in 2016, which can be understood as the ranking of people's love of coffee products.

Everyone loves the "classic style". However, wait a minute, those on the list are almost all classic models of "getting old".

The March sales provided by a cafe owner also confirmed the fact that "you and I are classics in no particular order":

Abu Abu Coffee sold 751 cups of coffee in March 2017, with the largest number of cappuccinos and the highest turnover. Three kinds of cappuccino, latte and American style, with sales of hundreds. 11 cups of hand coffee and 98 cups of cherry latte were sold.

No matter who is more popular, if you count the coffee products, you can always count them, and there are no breakthrough new products.

On the other hand, the pearl milk tea became popular more than 10 years ago, but now it has long disappeared, and now the ones that are popular are milk cover tea and fruit tea.

▲ New Tea shows vibrant innovative ability

In just a few years, the popular style of tea has been updated for several rounds, but coffee is still so old-fashioned. Why?

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In response, "Ka Men" consulted several people in the industry:

Miao Qin (founder of Yingwei Tea)

In foreign countries, coffee + wine, + milk, + enzymes, which also add a lot of other things. But why, in the end, after the precipitation of history, coffee or milk?

Because the coffee itself is bitter and astringent, it doesn't taste like anything else. Tea is relatively light and inclusive as a base.

I believe in tea, drinks and solids, because in the end, beverages are either floats or mixtures, and there is also a solid added fruit or crushed fruit.

In fact, all drinks are first expanded to give him the most suitable positioning, and then slowly reduce the number of products, leaving a few classic ones.

This should be the ultimate way for big bases such as tea, wine and coffee. There will be some minority ways to mix drinks in the market all the time, but they will be more and more categorized in the public.

Luo Jun (founder of Cha Xiang Shu Xiang)

I have made a systematic analysis of this matter. The product categories of tea and coffee are corresponding.

The milk tea in the tea corresponds to the latte in the coffee, they are all based on their own base and mixed model products; milk cover tea (sea salt tea), corresponding to cappuccino, they are also based on their own base, layered model products; fruit tea, is equivalent to the star ice music category, not based on tea or coffee itself, the development of mixed products.

In this way, American-style, hand-made coffee is equivalent to hand-made tea.

Han Gang (founder of Tang Tea Industry)

At that time, I also opened a coffee shop and talked to some coffee people. Many people felt that coffee with fruit and milk lid was not coffee, but that coffee should be pure. Therefore, the industry lacks the motivation of product innovation to a certain extent, and often fails to take into account the cruelty of business.

On the other hand, these classic coffee products are very mature and highly standardized. But new tea, still very young, is still in the exploration period of category products, and it is believed that in the end, it will precipitate some of the most popular "basic styles" in the market.

Wu Jianshen (product consultant for well-known chain brands)

This is mainly limited by coffee as a base, which does not match well with many raw materials, which limits the flexibility of application, and it is not easy to match with fruits.