Luckin Coffee Plans to Launch New Guiche Plus SOE Series! What is Guiche Queen Coffee Bean?

Inside Luckin Coffee's Bean Strategy

Luckin Coffee's launch of the Flower Queen 5.0 SOE sparked heated discussion for two reasons. First, offering a premium SOE at such a low price made competitors envious, and some argued that Luckin was simply squandering high-grade coffee. Second, supply ran short before the launch: the beans sold out in under ten days. The company restocked quickly, yet they sold out again within days, leading many netizens to accuse Luckin of orchestrating scarcity marketing once more.

Commenting on products that vanish the moment they launch, netizens joked, "This year's Flower Queen Dirty is last year's Raw Coconut — whether you get to drink one depends purely on luck." Luckin responded with an official statement on Weibo on January 11:

At the time, Luckin explained that for the 2021 production season there were genuinely only about 90 tons of Flower Queen 5.0 beans available. The second batch also sold out within days of listing. In theory, once that second batch was gone, the SOE should have been discontinued.

Then, on February 16, Luckin Chairman and CEO Guo Jinyi met with Ethiopian Ambassador to China Teshome Toga. He said that before the Flower Queen SOE launch, Luckin had indeed bought only about 90 tons of Flower Queen 5.0 beans. But Chinese consumers loved the series so much that the team practically "intercepted shipping containers at sea," securing an additional 39.2 tons just before the Spring Festival. Those beans were roasted and delivered to city warehouses by February 15. In total, Luckin bought 129.6 tons of Flower Queen 5.0 beans, making it the Chinese coffee brand with the largest purchase volume of Flower Queen beans.

Harvest Seasons and the Supply Chain Squeeze

Each year, October through February is the new harvest season for all Ethiopian coffee. Beans harvested between October 2021 and February 2022 therefore count as the 2022 new-season crop, and Flower Queen beans from that window belong to the new 6.0 series. According to the latest news from Coffee Workshop, the 2022 new-season Flower Queen 6.0 beans are expected to reach China as early as March this year.

Shipping conditions have been extremely tight in recent years, and containers are scarce. Once a container is booked, the voyage to China takes at most half a month — but when a booking actually comes through is anyone's guess. The container shortage of the past two years has reached the point where money alone cannot secure one. Luckin's ability to "intercept containers at sea" and secure an additional 39.2 tons of Flower Queen 5.0 beans was remarkable. Based on last month's sales pace, those 39.2 tons should sell out quickly as well, so anyone who wants a taste should seize the chance while it lasts.

Lessons Learned and What Comes Next

Asked about the repeated stockouts caused by insufficient Flower Queen 5.0 supply, the Luckin team admitted, "This really taught us a lesson." They now recognize that launching an SOE with fewer than 200 tons of green beans cannot meet demand.

Based on current Flower Queen SOE sales, Luckin's latest bean purchase agreement, signed on December 21 last year, commits the company to buying 3,000 tons of high-quality Ethiopian green beans during the first quarter of 2022, including 80 tons of Sidamo Flower Queen beans.

Those 80 tons of Flower Queen will clearly not be enough. Luckin therefore plans to help solve the supply problem by building closer relationships at origin, starting with the discovery of high-quality specialty coffee and support for expanding production capacity to meet market demand.

The meeting with the Ethiopian Ambassador to China aims to buy more Flower Queen beans and, with the facilitation and support of the Ethiopian Embassy in China, launch the Flower Queen PLUS series SOE in the second half of 2022. At that point, green bean purchases for Flower Queen PLUS will exceed 250 tons, and Luckin expects to become the coffee brand with the largest global purchase volume of Flower Queen PLUS green beans.

What Exactly Is Flower Queen PLUS?

Flower Queen PLUS is not the 2022 new-season Flower Queen 6.0. It is a separate naturally processed Ethiopian heirloom variety, also from the Buku Abel processing plant in Sidamo. A domestic green bean supplier named it "Flower Queen Plus," and its documentation lists it as Ethiopia Hambella Buku Abel Queen Plus G1 Natural.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee and home to countless heirloom varieties, which is why Ethiopian beans remain a favorite among coffee lovers who want to follow the origin's distinctive flavors. If you want to explore that profile for yourself, FrontStreet offers several approachable single origins.

For an easy introduction, try FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe. It shows a clear jasmine florality and a bright citrus acidity, with a light, elegant body and a tea-like quality — as refreshing and clean as a glass of lemon tea. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia where mist, cool humidity and thousands of coffee trees have long nurtured this interweaving of floral aroma and fruit acidity.

For a naturally processed counterpart, FrontStreet Natural Flower Queen comes from the Hambella area of Guji, Sidamo. The farm covers 200 hectares and uses the traditional natural method: ripe cherries are dried on raised beds for 21 days, turned regularly for even drying, with defective or moldy beans hand-sorted every three to five days. After a medium-light roast it delivers a light fermented wine aroma, florals, citrus and mango, with honeyed sweetness, a cocoa note and a hint of spice, a full body and a lasting finish.

The FrontStreet Ethiopia range also includes FrontStreet Gedingding Cooperative, FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry, FrontStreet Hambela 74158 and FrontStreet Kaffa Forest, so there is a cup for every preference.