Blind test of 7 takeaway coffees, the cheapest FamilyMart coffee scored the highest

Consumer Daily (Niu Xiafeng) Coffee has become a necessity in many people's daily lives. From "foreign brands" to "domestic" brands, from fast food restaurants to convenience stores, there are a wide variety of coffee brands for consumers to choose from. So what are the differences between these coffees? Does expensive coffee necessarily taste good? The coffee with the highest score turned out to be FamilyMart's coffee.

On September 4, 2019, the Hangzhou Consumer Protection Committee held a takeaway coffee consumer representative tasting meeting. Nine consumer representatives tasted seven different brands of coffee without knowing the coffee brands at all, and after tasting, they scored the coffee on seven aspects, including cleanliness, sweetness, mouth feel, aroma, aftertaste, balance, and overall evaluation.

Blind test of various brands

It is understood that the seven types of coffee selected for this blind test include Starbucks and Costa, a "foreign brand", and the emerging "domestic" Luckin Coffee, as well as the coffee supplied by the familiar Western fast food chains KFC and McDonald's, and coffee from the roadside convenience store FamilyMart and the dessert tea shop Cosamier. According to Lin Kaiqi, a staff member of the Hangzhou Consumer Protection Committee, the coffee used in this blind test is all from the seven brands of latte, without sugar or any seasoning, and the price range is between 10 yuan and 35 yuan.

How were these seven brands of coffee selected? Lin Kaiqi explained: "First, we screened three relatively professional coffee institutions, namely Starbucks, Costa and Luckin Coffee. The second is McDonald's and KFC, which represent the coffee of fast food restaurants. The third is FamilyMart and Casamil, which represent the convenience stores or cake shops we usually encounter on the roadside. They represent the popular. These seven brands of coffee represent three different levels."

Highest score for the whole family

During the blind test, the reporter randomly asked questions to consumer representatives on the scene. Mr. Yu, a consumer representative with more than 20 years of experience in "Fei Ling", believed that Coffee No. 1 tasted the best among the seven cups of coffee, and guessed that Coffee No. 1 might come from one of three professional coffee shops, namely Starbucks, Costa or Luckin Coffee.

When asked about the difference between professional coffee brands and non-professional coffee brands, Mr. Yu said: "The taste of the beans and the milk added are different. The coffee of professional coffee brands will taste much richer, and the milk used is more suitable for this type of coffee."

The blind test results showed that FamilyMart's latte, which costs only 14 yuan a cup, received the highest overall evaluation score of 2.77. KFC ranked second with a score of 2.11, while Starbucks only scored 1.88, tied with Kosher for fourth and fifth place. Luckin Coffee ranked last with a score of only 1.44.

Many consumer representatives were shocked by the result. "The highest score was actually from FamilyMart, whose coffee is only over 10 yuan a cup. It's really unexpected that Starbucks only scored this low," said Ms. Luo, a consumer representative. "The brand effect may give everyone a higher psychological bonus. If we want to see the taste, we don't necessarily have to go to a big store. We can go to a roadside store to try it."

Advocate rational consumption

It is reported that the nine consumer representatives who came to the event were selected by the Hangzhou Consumer Protection Committee through public recruitment and questionnaire filling. In fact, they are all coffee "enthusiasts". Lin Kaiqi introduced: "Some of them have been drinking coffee for seven or eight years, some for twenty years, and some for one to two years. They are of all ages, old, middle-aged and young."

Are the standards and results of this blind test authoritative? "There is no professional standard for this. This is just the result we got from soliciting opinions from most consumers." Lin Kaiqi explained that the 7 evaluation items of this blind test were obtained by soliciting opinions from consumers who registered for the event by phone, and the evaluation results only reflect consumers' recognition of the taste of the coffee brand.

Lin Kaiqi said: "In fact, our main purpose this time is to tell everyone from the perspective of consumers through blind testing that good coffee is not necessarily expensive, and imported coffee is not necessarily better than domestic coffee, so as to encourage consumers to consume rationally."