Coffee Shop Sells "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee"! Shanghai Market Supervision Bureau Launches Investigation

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The "Lianhua Qingwen" Coffee Trend

Recently, "Lianhua Qingwen" has been gaining massive traffic across various platforms. As long as products contain elements related or similar to "Lianhua Qingwen," they immediately become the hottest topics. Consequently, some merchants have begun finding ways to ride this wave of popularity.

Regulatory Discovery

Recently, law enforcement officers from the Shanghai Qingpu District Market Supervision Bureau discovered during routine inspections that a certain coffee shop was using cups labeled with "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" to sell their products. Meanwhile, on the shop's delivery platform, consumers also posted pictures of beverages with "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" labels.

After on-site inventory checks by law enforcement officers, statistics showed that the shop had 290 paper and plastic cups labeled with "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee." Additionally, there were 6 green medium paper cups already labeled with beverage labels, prepared to hold corresponding drinks for sale.

At the scene, there were also 1,058 unused "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" labels - a staggering quantity. Subsequently, law enforcement officers ordered the shop to stop using the above cups and to destroy all unused "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" labels.

The Shop Owner's Explanation

According to the shop's manager, a consumer shared with him pictures from other coffee shops using "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" labels and suggested he could also sell this way, possibly leading to great sales. He also thought this kind of wordplay was quite interesting, so he customized "Lianhua Qingwen Coffee" labels online and began selling beverages with these labels starting from December 19, 2022.

Consumer Experience and Medical Perspective

It must be said that putting such labels on coffee product packaging might provide some psychological comfort to consumers. Even some netizens who drank this type of Lianhua Qingwen coffee reported that they had been suffering from headaches and nasal congestion for several days, and felt relief after drinking just one cup! Truly remarkable!

However, besides the eye-catching packaging design and name, this coffee product has essentially no connection to the medicinal functions of Lianhua Qingwen. If cold symptoms were alleviated after drinking it, it might be attributed to caffeine.

Colds cause blood vessels in the brain to dilate and press on muscles, while caffeine has the function of stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and constricting blood vessels, creating an opposite effect that calms headaches. Nasal congestion during colds is caused by blood vessel congestion in the nose. Similar to relieving headaches, caffeine has the effect of constricting blood vessels.

Of course, everyone's physical constitution is different, and there are many causes of colds. Not everyone will experience the same effects, and coffee is not a cure-all.

Legal Consequences

Law enforcement officers informed the shop manager that his behavior of "riding the trend" could easily lead people to mistakenly believe that his product was someone else's merchandise or had a specific connection with others.

Although "Lianhua Qingwen" currently does not have trademark exclusivity, and the appearance design patent of the medicine box is not temporarily involved. Moreover, many coffee cups use "莲花" (lotus flower) rather than "连花" (connected flowers), so theoretically it does not constitute infringement. However, due to certain risks, merchants are advised not to do so.

The shop manager also stated that he had realized his sales behavior was inappropriate and would not engage in similar sales practices again. Currently, the Qingpu District Market Supervision Bureau has launched an investigation into the coffee shop's suspected unfair competition practices in accordance with the law.

Image source: Internet

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