Introduction:In recent years, an increasing number of coffee brands have launched new products with ingredients such as tapioca pearls, agar jelly, and fruit jellies, prompting people to wonder: is coffee heading in the direction of tea beverages? From HEYTEA’s brown sugar boba coffee to Starbucks’ caramel coffee popping boba, what consumer psychology and market strategies lie behind this trend of “coffee drinks becoming more like tea drinks”? This article will guide you through this evolution and explore its deeper impact on the coffee industry.

Walking into a modern coffee shop, customers’ orders may no longer be limited to “switching iced Americano to Yirgacheffe SOE with an extra shot,” but increasingly include choices resembling tea drinks, such as “adding crispy boba or lemon jelly.” This shift, from HEYTEA first incorporating brown sugar boba into coffee, to Luckin Coffee using black sugar agar to create Meteorite Latte, to Starbucks launching caramel coffee popping boba in some markets, has gradually formed a noticeable trend.

This innovation of “coffee with add-ins” can be traced back to around 2018, when some shops began experimenting with adding juice or fruit to coffee, eventually evolving into the fruit-flavored specialty drinks commonly seen today. However, modern coffee specials place greater emphasis on visual presentation—drinks with distinct layers and vibrant colors are more likely to catch the eye of younger consumers.

The year 2019 was pivotal when HEYTEA introduced brown sugar boba into its coffee series, offering customers who love the texture of pearls but want to enjoy coffee a new choice, and successfully sparking a wave of boba coffee enthusiasm. This cross-category combination broke the traditional framework of coffee being paired only with milk, opening up more possibilities.

Shortly after, Luckin Coffee launched Meteorite Latte, choosing black sugar agar instead of traditional boba. Compared to HEYTEA’s soft and chewy texture, agar’s unique crispiness won favor with many consumers. The product remained a bestseller for three years, demonstrating the market’s acceptance of such innovations.

Observing this trend, Starbucks has also launched coffee products containing “boba elements” in multiple regions since 2020. To balance the essence of coffee with the enjoyment of chewing, Starbucks specially developed caramel coffee popping boba that bursts to release sweet caramel coffee liquid, retaining the fun of boba while attempting to minimize interference with the overall flavor.

However, initially, these popping boba were mostly used in high-sugar Frappuccinos. But due to the boba’s own excessive sweetness, combined with the sugar content of the Frappuccinos, market feedback was not ideal. In 2021, Starbucks switched to incorporating the boba into its cold brew series and launched them in limited quantities in the U.S. market, where sweet treats are preferred, yet still failed to achieve the expected response.

Many American consumers stated that traditional tapioca pearls made from cassava, although soft and chewy, felt more substantial in comparison. The popping boba, on the other hand, were not only overly sweet and cloying, lacking the satisfying bounce, but the released caramel coffee liquid also disrupted the otherwise refreshing taste of cold brew, negatively affecting the overall drinking experience.

In contrast, the combination of black sugar boba and black sugar agar in the domestic market seems to better align with consumer expectations. Whether it’s HEYTEA or Luckin Coffee, the innovative attempts of these two major chain brands prove the market potential of combining coffee with add-ins and reflect the new expectations of the younger generation for “coffee drinks.”

However, this trend has also sparked skepticism among many traditional and specialty coffee enthusiasts. Many believe that coffee should remain pure, and once ingredients other than milk or syrup are added, it loses its essence as coffee. This viewpoint highlights two distinctly different consumer mindsets in the market.

In fact, the tea-drink-like transformation of coffee may be an inevitable part of market development. Only through continuous innovation and breaking of established frameworks can more consumers who previously did not engage with coffee be attracted. However, such innovative products and the traditional-focused specialty coffee market fundamentally target very different customer groups.

Just as tea shops use real tea leaves as a base while also offering a variety of add-ins, without ever affecting the choices of true tea enthusiasts, the world of coffee is equally inclusive. Whether one pursues professional extraction and emphasizes regional flavor profiles as purists, or enjoys adding various ingredients and relishing diverse textures as innovators, each has its own value.

For many consumers, coffee with pearls or agar may be their entry point into the world of coffee drinks. Today’s boba coffee lovers may tomorrow become advocates of pour over or specialty coffee. This gradual progression from simple to complex consumption is an important pathway for the spread of coffee culture.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.