Dangdang Founder Li Guoqing Questions Luckin's Monopoly in Coffee Bean Market! Is Luckin Coffee's Guetia 5.0 Coffee Bean Authentic?

Yesterday afternoon, Li Guoqing, founder of Dangdang, posted the same video across Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo under three different titles: "Listen to Old Li—specialty coffee is not for you," "Luckin Coffee, what exactly are you trying to do?" and "Luckin brings in Huakui, and Old Li is furious! Today I must publicly call out Luckin on behalf of every pour-over coffee drinker in the country. You're a seller of mass-market coffee—stop having those thoughts of 'cornering' the specialty bean market!"

Start with a bit of context: Luckin Coffee's latest green coffee purchase agreement, signed on December 21, 2021. Under it, Luckin committed to buying more than 3,000 tons of high-quality Ethiopian green coffee beans in Ethiopia during the first quarter of 2022, including 2,000 tons of specialty-grade Yirgacheffe and 80 tons of Sidamo Huakui. For details, revisit the Coffee Workshop report: "Luckin signed a super big order! Will Luckin become the largest buyer of Huakui coffee beans in China?!"

On January 4th, Luckin launched its Little Black Cup · SOE Huakui 5.0 series nationwide, rolling out the Huakui 5.0 · Americano, Huakui 5.0 · Latte, Huakui 5.0 · Flat White, and Huakui 5.0 · Raw Coconut Latte.

The news instantly drew attention from industry insiders. Practitioners and home brewers alike complained that Luckin was wasting precious resources, and questioned whether the chain was deliberately disrupting the market—after all, it didn't pick just any beans, but specifically Huakui, which sees a total annual output of only around 1,000-plus tons.

According to available figures, Luckin's agreement covers direct purchases of more than 80 tons from the origin within a single quarter (three months)—already a sizable share of what enters China. That was enough to rattle Li Guoqing, better known as "the Cannon"!

In the video, Li Guoqing said: "Old Li is going to publicly call out Luckin Coffee today! A friend of mine who runs a coffee shop knows I like pour-over, and he complained to me that good beans are getting harder and harder to buy—and prices have climbed a lot! At first I thought it was the pandemic. Then, on the morning of January 5th, I saw Luckin's official push for its new 'Huakui Dirty.' China imports only a little over 100 tons of Huakui coffee beans from Africa each year, and they alone bought up over 90 tons. First, I don't know if that's bragging—and Old Li isn't about to advertise for you—but Old Li has to ask: isn't this monopolization?"

*It's unclear whether the 90-plus tons mentioned in the video was a slip of the tongue by Li Guoqing or based on newer figures. Luckin has not officially announced how many Huakui beans it will ultimately purchase in the first quarter of 2022.*

He went on: "The so-called—of course so-called—upstream supply chain has already been invisibly monopolized. Doing business this way will leave the people who truly drink pour-over, the people who make specialty coffee, and the people who run coffee shops with no beans to drink or use—or beans at outrageous prices." (Not that he forgot to plug his own Dangdang, noting that after all his years in business he had never thought about monopolizing the source.)

(The video continued:) "You, Luckin, with your chain of more than 5,000 stores—it's perfectly fine to use blends for your chain business. Other chains don't touch specialty beans, so why are you doing this? To disrupt the market? Who can even tell the difference! Does it make any difference to your Raw Coconut Latte whether the beans are specialty grade or not? Isn't this just wasting high-quality resources? In the end, the people who truly brew pour-over and drink specialty coffee won't be able to get any. Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?"

(Still going:) "Honestly, specialty coffee calls for a sense of ritual. I know a thing or two about beans like Huakui. The best way is to brew it yourself as a pour-over, maybe finish with some latte art—that's what truly respects this coffee. It's like brewing tea: only with care and attention can you do justice to good leaves. So, Luckin, did you hear me? You should leave these good beans for the people who can understand and appreciate them."

By this point, netizens were frankly baffled by what he was going on about... The comment section drifted from early agreement... to questioning whether he had thought any of it through. From overwhelming support at the start to overwhelming doubt at the end, the prevailing reactions were "Who exactly are you looking down on?" and "Why can't a chain use good beans to make good coffee for consumers? What a bizarre take." Some even joked: "Come one, come all—watch Old Li demonstrate exactly how to fail."

Old Li's remarks also left many netizens wondering whether negative traffic is still traffic—and traffic means viewership, and viewership equals publicity. As one commenter put it: "A cultured person is cultured through and through—even their marketing manages to be refreshingly unconventional."

In recent years, coffee has transformed from a "fashion label" into an everyday beverage for more and more people. But that gradual popularization has done little to shake the coffee world's stubborn hierarchy: pour-over > cloth-drip > Americano > milk coffee > instant. A big part of why netizens reacted so strongly is precisely this: Li Guoqing, a public figure, argued that good beans belong in niche specialty circles rather than in Luckin's stores—which is the hierarchy talking.

"Looking at Old Li is like seeing the entire coffee world in miniature. Are ordinary consumers not worthy of specialty coffee?" To that question in the comments, all I'll say is: knowing too much gets you "silenced." In reality, as Huakui's fame has grown—just as Li Guoqing said—the quantity entering China isn't large. If orders increase, traders can simply import more. In the years since Huakui won its awards, the number of processing plants and the volume of processed beans have both grown. A purchase of 80 tons cannot monopolize anything. If anything, the real worry would be Luckin buying in bulk at scale and distorting market prices for cheap beans.

Image source: Weibo Li Guoqing video screenshot, Internet

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

All the fuss over who gets to drink Huakui misses the happy fact that anyone can. The FrontStreet natural Huakui, from Ethiopia's Guji zone, is the same star bean at the heart of the debate: natural-processed for maximal sweetness, it opens with strawberry, passion fruit, jackfruit, and even lychee aromas, carries a clear honeyed sweetness, and has so little bitterness that drinkers swear it's "the least coffee-like coffee"—a bean that converts skeptics on the first sip.

If you'd rather explore the wider Yirgacheffe family, the FrontStreet washed Worka Gedeb cooperative lot is the classic counterpoint: jasmine florals, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and berry tones with a green-tea finish, celebrated as "the last pure land of Yirgacheffe" for its traditional washed processing. Both capture exactly what the ritual of pour-over is for.

As for whether great beans belong in chains or in cafés—good coffee is good coffee, wherever it's brewed. For home brewers chasing that same clean floral cup, use a V60 at 90–91°C with a 1:15 ratio and a grind near fine granulated sugar, and judge the beans yourself.