Ignoring Flavor Pairing, Creative Coffee Has Reached "Genetic Mutation" Levels...

The Evolution of Creative Coffee: From Innovation to Absurdity

What kind of creative coffee can capture consumers' attention? Taste, complexity, presentation? No, it's absurdity—the kind that's exceptionally and outrageously over-the-top.

In recent years, driven by consumers' strong desire for novelty, creative coffee has evolved into a "genetic mutation" rhythm... Coffee creators are no longer pursuing flavor harmony; as long as it's outrageous enough, it will surely generate temporary buzz.

For hundreds of years, people have been adding other foods to coffee to make its taste more palatable and dilute its bitterness. After a Viennese person added milk to coffee in 1683, coffee was no longer limited to black coffee. With the evolution of time and gradual food abundance, people began experimenting with adding ingredients beyond milk to coffee. White sugar, cocoa, and cream also became classic coffee pairings.

It wasn't until 1950 that an Irish bartender pioneered mixing whiskey with coffee, creating the timeless classic Irish Coffee. People gradually began experimenting with adding other mixed beverages to coffee that could create richer layers and more impactful flavors while still preserving the coffee's taste. Although Irish Coffee is a classic beverage, it wasn't popular when first launched because not many people could make it well, making it a coffee cocktail that was serendipitous rather than widely available.

The Rise of Milk-Based Coffee Variations

Since not everyone could create delicious and classic mixed coffee, and not everyone could accept alcohol, to satisfy consumers' pursuit of new flavors while ensuring every mixed coffee retained coffee flavor while offering different sensations, countless variations of "milk coffee" emerged. From adding traditional ice cream to the later development of various plant-based milks and then to various flavored syrups, mixed coffee has been inseparable from milk and sugar for several decades.

Until the last decade, as coffee gradually gained popularity in China, these conventional mixed coffees could no longer satisfy consumers' desire for uniqueness and novelty. Thus, Chinese-style specialty coffees began to emerge. Initially, these specialty coffees were relatively mild, combining with China's unique tea beverages to preserve coffee's distinctive flavor while allowing the delicate fragrance of tea to come through.

Gradually, the flavor complexity of such specialty coffees no longer attracted consumers, so various fruits and juices began to be added, creating distinct layers in specialty coffees. They were visually appealing and photogenic. However, as major coffee shops successively launched juice-based specialty coffees, the variety of juices added became increasingly rich, and coffee gradually became a supporting character in these specialties.

The Era of Abstract and Localized Coffee Creations

But juice alone wasn't enough, so abstract specialty coffees began to emerge. For example, specialty coffees named after various bands or book titles—each representing the inner feelings of creative baristas who drew inspiration from certain places and expressed them through different fruits and spices, allowing consumers to connect with the barista's inner thoughts when tasting these coffees. If you didn't get it, then you didn't understand the coffee, so these abstract-style specialty coffees quickly faded away.

What followed was an era of specialty coffees that all consumers could distinctly experience. How to create resonance with consumers? "Localization" was the most direct approach. Combining local characteristic flavors and ingredients with coffee led to the emergence of pickle Americano, tofu pudding latte, soy sauce latte, Sichuan peppercorn Americano... Ingredients that seemed completely unrelated to ordinary people were creatively combined by baristas, opening up new paths.

The Shift Toward Culinary Coffee Experiences

Although they gained consumer attention, these creations still weren't appealing because many specialty coffees couldn't showcase their characteristics in photos! So, for greater visual and taste impact, even more bizarre combinations began to appear! For example, Chinese sausage specialty, pig's feet with ginger specialty, chilled rice dumpling specialty, sugar-coated hawthorn specialty... These specialty coffees were generally paired with corresponding ingredients, allowing the overall flavor of the coffee to blend harmoniously with the ingredients' original taste.

But these small amounts of ingredients couldn't satisfy consumers' hunger. So turtle jelly and goji berry latte, tofu pudding latte, pudding cup latte, fermented rice ball latte began to appear... They weren't afraid you wouldn't drink it—they were afraid you wouldn't be full! Coffee was no longer just coffee, and specialty drinks were no longer just specialties—they had become dishes!

The Current State and Reflection on Creative Coffee

The emergence of specialty coffee was originally intended to make coffee acceptable to those who didn't like it, but today's specialty coffees contain coffee without tasting like coffee. Why did it develop this way? Some specialty coffee developers explain: People's acceptance of coffee flavor is still relatively weak. Everyone needs caffeine and social interaction through coffee but doesn't want to taste any bitterness and wants novel things to discuss, so whether it tastes like coffee isn't important.

The development of specialty coffee is no longer about making more people accept coffee; even people uninterested in coffee can still be curious about these bizarre creative specialties. However, this hasn't made consumers more interested in specialty coffees—on the contrary, some have developed aversions... Because some specialty coffee creations pair ingredients that completely clash with coffee flavor, taking a sip leaves one with mixed emotions, and the prices aren't cheap either, making people increasingly cautious about specialty coffees.

From many netizens' discussions about specialty coffee, it's clear that the "genetic mutation" of specialty coffee hasn't made more people accept coffee, and many have questioned the appropriateness of pairing certain ingredients with coffee. To enhance product appearance and characteristics, the harmony of flavors has been sacrificed, using inherently unreasonable combinations to create outrageous products in exchange for one-time purchases by a small number of consumers.

Products without repeat purchase rates are destined to be replaced and won't be remembered. The cost of developing a single creative coffee is also very expensive, and beverages that require long development periods without recovering costs are just loss-making investments. People won't remember a coffee shop just because of temporary traffic. Such rapid iteration cannot help a shop be remembered for long—only by truly perfecting one product can good reputation accumulate.

Creative coffee can be a shop's signature or its stumbling block. Good reputation requires good products, and good creative coffee also needs to consider flavor harmony. A good creative coffee requires sufficient understanding and knowledge of both coffee and the ingredients themselves—you can't sacrifice the most important aspect—taste—just for appearance.

Image source: Xiaohongshu & Dianping

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