Why Do Luckin Coffee Prices Differ Between Stores? 2023 Latest Price List and Top 10 Best Drinks Recommendations

Luckin Coffee's Rapid Product Development

In recent years Luckin Coffee's development team has moved at rocket speed, refreshing both its themes and its products at a remarkable pace. If you are not sure what to order, the newest releases are usually the safest bet: they tend to be sweet, so there is little risk of the coffee tasting too bitter. If sweet drinks are your thing, the Little Black Cup series is also worth trying.

Luckin Coffee 2023 Price List

Classic Coffee (made with blended coffee beans)

Latte: 15 yuan | Caramel Latte: 17 yuan | Okinawa Brown Sugar Latte: 17 yuan | Vanilla Latte: 17 yuan

Flat White: 17 yuan | Standard Americano: 13 yuan | Strong Americano: 16 yuan

Little Black Cup Series (made with SOE single-origin specialty beans)

Yirgacheffe Dirty: 19 yuan | Yirgacheffe Flat White: 21 yuan | Yirgacheffe Americano: 17 yuan | Yirgacheffe Latte: 19 yuan

Cheese Foam Latte Series

Cheese Foam Latte: 18 yuan | Red Bean Love Latte: 21 yuan

Raw Coconut Family (Luckin's breakout hit)

Raw Coconut Latte: 18 yuan | Coconut Cloud Latte: 19 yuan | Raw Coconut Velvet Latte: 19 yuan | Raw Coconut Mocha: 21 yuan | Raw Coconut Matcha: 19 yuan | Meteorite Raw Coconut Latte: 20 yuan

Velvet Latte Series

Velvet Latte: 18 yuan | Raw Coconut Velvet Latte: 19 yuan | Okinawa Brown Sugar Velvet Latte: 19 yuan | Vanilla Velvet Latte: 19 yuan

Thick Milk Latte Series (made with rich milk)

Thick Milk Latte: 16 yuan | Sea Salt Cheese Thick Milk Latte: 19 yuan | Meteorite Thick Milk Latte: 19 yuan

Ruicha Ice (blended ice series)

Matcha Mango Ruicha Ice: 22 yuan | Cappuccino Ruicha Ice: 19 yuan | Matcha Ruicha Ice: 19 yuan | Chocolate Ruicha Ice: 19 yuan

Price Inconsistencies and Store Tiers

Some media outlets previously reported that Luckin Coffee's products had quietly gone up by one yuan, and that pickup prices for Luckin drinks were higher than delivery prices.

According to the IQ Tax Research Center's public account, on April 24 of that year the center found that ordering from the same store at the same time made pickup more expensive than delivery.

The reason for the gap is that delivery requires paying a fee to couriers, so the listed price is lower.

The IQ Tax Research Center also listed two stores on its public account, the Guangyao Oriental Center store and the Century Trade Building store, both in Haidian District, Beijing, where the same Matcha Ruicha Ice was sold at different prices.

The Matcha Ruicha Ice at the Guangyao Oriental Center Luckin store was priced at 18 yuan, while the same product at the Century Trade Building Luckin store was priced at 20 yuan.

Searching the Dianping platform turned up different prices for Vanilla Latte at the two stores as well.

Then on May 18, the researcher placed another order and discovered that Luckin Coffee had raised prices by another yuan.

They subsequently contacted Luckin customer service to verify what was happening.

Luckin customer service explained that because delivery requires paying a fee to couriers, the price is slightly lower.

As for why two Luckin stores less than 500 meters apart charged different prices, a staff member at a Luckin Coffee near Hangtian Bridge said: "Luckin stores are classified as first-tier and second-tier. Our store is second-tier, while several nearby stores are first-tier, so we are one to two yuan more expensive than the stores around us."

On the price increases, the employee added: "Because some people cannot accept our current second-tier pricing, our store is serving as a pilot, raising prices first to see how customers react. If they can accept it, we will raise prices gradually later, and nearby Luckin stores will follow until they match ours. After all, we cannot keep selling coffee for just over ten yuan forever. We cannot keep losing money."

Netizens had actually discussed the topic on Douban earlier, and the information there matches this explanation: it comes down to Luckin stores being classified as first-tier and second-tier.

As of that point, however, Luckin Coffee had not officially responded to the reports.

Luckin's History With Coupons and Its Recovery

In its early days Luckin Coffee was nicknamed the merchant most fond of handing out coupons, thanks to its aggressive spending. The accounting fraud scandal the company exposed itself shocked everyone. Many assumed Luckin would have to give up the title, but the company made an unusual announcement: users could still receive coupons, at 1.8-fold, 2.8-fold and 3.8-fold discounts and so on. Later, as Luckin ran into serious difficulty, it announced store optimization and adjustments to coupon discounts, but this only reduced the intensity, moving from roughly 2-fold to 4.8-fold. During this period Luckin also told customers that despite delisting, new products would still come with discounts and new users could still take advantage of the offers.

It is worth noting that after the financial scandal Luckin Coffee did not collapse. Instead it posted respectable results and returned to a positive trajectory.

*Some material and image sources: IQ Tax Research Center public account

*Image source: internet

Why a Yirgacheffe SOE Costs More Than a Blend

The price list above makes one thing clear: the Little Black Cup series sits a few yuan above the classic line, and the reason is what goes in the basket. The classic drinks are built on a blend, which by design is a cost-control tool: several origins are combined so that the strengths of each cover the weaknesses of the others, and inexpensive components can carry the volume. An SOE, by contrast, is a single origin brewed on its own, with nowhere to hide. Yirgacheffe is a case in point. The name belongs to a town in southern Ethiopia within the Sidamo area, at roughly 1700-2100 meters, with the coffee itself planted above 1800 meters, which makes it one of the highest growing regions in the world. It was historically a wetland, and its coffee became so closely identified with a distinctive white floral aroma and a lemon-citrus acidity that the name turned into shorthand for an entire style. In 2010, precisely because the reputation had grown so large, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange separated Yirgacheffe from Sidamo as an origin in its own right.

What Actually Drives the Price Differences Between Stores

The reports above concern store tiers, delivery fees and coupon strategy, none of which have anything to do with the coffee itself. What they show is that a cup's price reflects logistics and marketing as much as ingredients: delivery is priced lower because the platform already collects a fee, pickup is priced higher because no courier is involved, and first-tier and second-tier stores can differ by a yuan or two based on location and rent. For a drinker trying to judge value, the more useful question is what is in the cup, which is exactly the distinction the Little Black Cup line is built on.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the Yirgacheffe drinks on that price list are what you keep ordering, it is worth knowing what the origin tastes like on its own. FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe daily bean is the standard reference: white jasmine, a bright citrus and lemon acidity and a tea-like body, priced so that it can be an everyday coffee rather than a treat, which is why it is often the first specialty bean people buy. FrontStreet Coffee Gediding Cooperative takes the same origin a step further. The cooperative sits in the Worka area at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe and began life as part of the Worka cooperative under the Yirgacheffe union; as buyers pushed for traceability, the roughly 300 farmers who made it up formed their own cooperative in 2012. It follows the traditional washed method, and because the fruit is stripped before drying, the coffee's own aromatics come through more clearly: citrus and lemon acidity with jasmine, bright and fine rather than heavy, and without the bitter note that some drinkers associate with coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Natural Red Cherry shows the opposite side of the same region. Only fully ripe, sound cherries are used, and they are screened on arrival before going straight onto raised beds, turned every 2-3 hours in the first days so they dry evenly rather than fermenting unevenly in the heat. After three to five weeks of sun, the dried fruit is machine-stripped and the beans go into storage. Because the fruit stays on the seed throughout, the cup keeps the classic Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit from the natural process: a citrus acidity, a berry juice quality, honey sweetness and a creamy texture. Brewed in a V60 at 90-91°C with 15g to 225g at a 1:15 ratio, ground to about the size of fine sugar, it is an easy demonstration of why Yirgacheffe earned its reputation.