Starbucks Has Pearl Coffee Too! Coffee with Toppings Isn't Excessive

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Perhaps in the near future, when ordering coffee, instead of saying "I want an iced Americano, substitute Yirgacheffe SOE, add an extra shot, extra ice with no water," people might say, "I want an iced Americano, substitute Yirgacheffe SOE, add crispy popping boba and lemon jelly."

The trend of coffee becoming more like tea drinks isn't new. As early as 2018, various merchants began adding fruit juices and fruits to coffee, gradually evolving into the many fruit-based specialty coffee drinks we see today. The difference is that current specialty drinks place more emphasis on the visual appeal of the final product, making them visually richer and more layered.

Until 2019, HEYTEA began adding brown sugar boba to their coffee series, realizing many people's dream of having more pearls in their lattes, and also sparked a wave of pearl coffee enthusiasm.

Luckin Coffee subsequently launched their "Meteorite Latte," adding brown sugar agar to lattes. Compared to HEYTEA's chewy pearls, the addition of agar seemed to be more favored by consumers. This product has been available for three years since its launch.

Starbucks also observed this trend, launching coffee products with "pearls" in different regions starting from 2020. To better integrate pearls into coffee products, Starbucks developed caramel coffee popping pearls that burst with one bite, allowing customers to experience the joy of chewing pearls while not affecting the drink's texture.

Initially, these coffee popping pearls were added to Frappuccino products. However, because the popping pearls were too sweet and Frappuccinos themselves were also very sweet, these products didn't gain much favor from consumers. By 2021, Starbucks began adding these products to cold brew offerings, launching them as limited editions in the American region, where consumers love sweet foods.

The result? American consumers didn't like them either! Many consumers commented that they would rather have pearls made from tapioca flour, as at least they're chewy. The popping pearls were overwhelmingly sweet with no texture, and when the caramel coffee burst out, the coffee flavor always tasted strange.

Looking at it this way, China's brown sugar boba and brown sugar agar are more substantial... The fact that two well-known coffee chains have added small ingredients to their coffee products shows that this innovative approach has a clear pattern to follow.

However, this has also sparked opposition from those who advocate for traditional and specialty coffee. Most believe that coffee should be consumed purely, and that adding ingredients other than milk, white sugar, and water means it can no longer be called coffee.

That coffee will gradually become more tea-like may be an inevitable development. Only by constantly changing itself and subverting people's perception of a product can it attract more attention and interest. However, this market and the market for traditional, specialty coffee cater to two completely different customer bases.

Tradition has its heritage, innovation has its breakthroughs. Today, many tea drink shops also use various real tea leaves as their base, adding many small ingredients, but this hasn't affected the sale of quality tea leaves, nor has it affected the mindset of consumers who insist on brewing good tea.

People who love drinking coffee might not consume these coffee products with added ingredients, but those who consume coffee products with small ingredients might become curious about pure coffee because of it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, similar to how many people started with instant coffee as their first cup, only to fall in love with single-origin coffee and specialty coffee later on.

Coffee itself is highly inclusive, much like tea. It can be understood from a professional perspective, extracting tea/coffee with regional flavor characteristics using appropriate parameters, but it can also become more diverse through the addition of different ingredients.

The two approaches don't inherently conflict. If we truly want the coffee industry to achieve sustainable and healthy development, we need people who insist on professionalism and preserve traditions, as well as people who innovate and break through, attracting more attention to coffee.

Image source: Internet

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