Luckin Coffee: The Pinduoduo of coffee? | American Review

Luckin Coffee, the "little blue cup" that has been opening stores everywhere, has finally opened a store in Xi'an. It was said that ten stores were opened at the same time last weekend. As a former coffee practitioner, I think this is also a big event in the industry. At the same time, as a Xi'an native who loves to try new things, after grabbing a coupon on WeChat Moments, I have been waiting for an opportunity to place an order.

As fate would have it, I ordered two orders of six types of coffee in one afternoon, and I really wanted to write a review.

First, I placed an order with my colleagues at noon.

This was my first order from Luckin Coffee, so there was a big discount: the original price was 86 yuan, and I used a free coupon for new customers to deduct 27 yuan, for a total of 59 yuan.

I chose Americano, latte, and black tea latte. As a sweet lover, I also ordered a chocolate scone and a banana walnut muffin. I placed the order at 14:12 and it was delivered at 14:29, a total of 17 minutes, which is pretty fast.

I was shocked when I saw the SF Express guy riding an electric bike and coming quickly with coffee in a thermal box. It was the first time I saw SF Express delivering food!

So I asked one more question, and found out that this is a third-party company that assigns people to be responsible for delivery according to the area. In addition to Luckin Coffee, they also provide delivery services for KFC and McDonald's (never seen it before), and their attitude is quite nice.

The packaging is quite rigorous, with cup sleeves, coasters, and tissues all fully equipped. The receipt is also attached to the bag with clear order details, so delivery and pickup will not make mistakes.

The cups I ordered this time were all hot drinks, with seals, and some spilled, but not serious and within acceptable limits. Two cup sleeves were also included with the order, but the temperature of the three cups was not too hot when they were delivered to my hands, and the temperature felt about 40 or 50 degrees?

There is only one cup size for takeout orders, which is about 16oz, or about 480ml.

☕☕☕☕☕

Once the words are out, the former practitioners are about to start drinking.

Americano: 21 yuan. The overall taste is sour and light, as if too much water was added. For someone like me who is used to drinking Starbucks Americano and hand-brewed coffee, it tastes like water for washing cups.

Latte: 24 yuan. The taste is still sour, the milk and coffee blend well, the milk foam is very thick, as if it was mixed with the coffee after being heated casually.

Black tea latte: 27 yuan. To be honest, this is not as good as the milk tea that costs more than 10 yuan outside. The taste is strange and bland, with the astringent taste of tea but no milk taste. It feels like half a cup of water and half a cup of milk with a little sweetness of essence. I don’t know what brand of sugar water is used. Then I looked at the order page again, and it didn’t show that I could choose sugar or no sugar like other drinks. It is really not friendly to me who is currently losing weight.

The two desserts - scones and banana walnut muffins - were cold when I got them. I guess they were just taken out of the refrigerator. I wonder if they will heat them up when I order them in the store. For this kind of snacks, I think they taste better when heated up.

I ordered chocolate scones, which were slightly sweet and tasted OK; the banana walnut muffins had some walnuts on them and were slightly oily. I didn't taste any banana flavor, but a bit of citrus flavor? I like scones, but a colleague who was born in the 1990s likes muffins more.

If you ignore the temperature of these two desserts, the price-performance ratio is quite high compared to the drinks. The two together cost only 14 yuan with a 50% discount, which is equivalent to ordering a muffin or scone at Starbucks, and the taste is not much different.

☕☕☕☕☕

We had just finished drinking and cleaning up the first order when two friends came over. After learning that Luckin Coffee had just been there, they also wanted to try it, so they placed another order.

The second order was citrus passion fruit, caramel macchiato, litchi Reina ice cream, and a cheese blueberry cake. I used the coffee wallet buy two get one free offer to save 21 yuan, and the total payment was 66.5 yuan. I placed the order at 15:32 and it was delivered at 15:41, which took 9 minutes. This time I ordered an ice drink and a cake, so there were straws and plastic knives and forks when it was delivered.

Citrus passion fruit (hot): 21 yuan. Everyone tried a small sip and said, isn't that a drink made with that powder? It reminded me of the orange juice I drank when I was a child, sweet and a little sour. It's better to have two cups of sour plum soup.

Caramel Macchiato: 27 yuan. This is too much to bear. The traces of caramel are completely gone. It may also be because the hot milk did not produce dense milk foam, causing the caramel to sink to the bottom instantly. There is no coffee taste, and the taste of sugar water is more prominent. I especially don’t recommend ordering this.

Xiaoxue Lychee Reina Ice: 27 yuan. This is a smoothie, not melted too much when it was delivered, with a sweet lychee taste, maybe little girls will like it more.

Blueberry cheesecake: 12.5 yuan. The cheese taste is not obvious, and it feels powdery in the mouth, that is, the flour taste covers the cheese; also, the price is better, it is currently half price, half the price of cakes outside. If it is the original price, then I will go to another store to get a piece.

☕☕☕☕☕

After trying six drinks and three desserts in one afternoon, I feel qualified to comment on Luckin Coffee:

First of all, for people who have higher requirements for taste and quality, the Little Blue Cup is obviously not the first choice. Of course, it is also possible that this group of people are not the target audience of the Little Blue Cup.

But Luckin's price and speed are still acceptable. Both orders were delivered within 20 minutes, and the buy-two-get-one-free and half-price desserts are very tempting. The coffee discounts are also very generous, with buy-two-get-one-free and buy-five-get-five-free. There are also various free and discount coupons to receive. No wonder it is also called "money-throwing coffee."

This discount is very friendly to offices with a lot of people. There is no pressure to order it, and it is almost equivalent to half price.

However, ordering is not very convenient. You cannot use third-party programs. You need to download the Luckin app to order. It is said that you also need to place orders on the app if you consume in the store, which makes people unhappy. A friend in Beijing refused to try this brand for this reason.

After drinking and testing, I casually posted a message on WeChat Moments. In less than an hour, there were about 70 replies, most of which asked about the opening and taste, and some out-of-town friends talked about their Luckin experience. Here is a message from a friend in Chengdu: The drink is good, the payment method is good, it is the Pinduoduo of the coffee world.

It would be nice to become Pinduoduo, right? After all, nowadays, everyone is short of money but needs coffee, so the emergence of this new type of Internet coffee has attracted a lot of attention.

In short, this is a coffee and coffee brand that is better than nothing. If you have a discount coupon, you can try it. If not, you can think about it again.