Introduction:This year during Labor Day, Heytea’s flagship store in Jiangmen Riverside once again experienced a peak in orders. The mini-program showed “1,002 drinks waiting to be prepared,” and within just 12 minutes of opening, orders exceeded 1,000. The store automatically stopped taking orders as many as seven times that day. Twenty-eight staff members worked continuously for 13 hours during peak periods, and the tea-brewing machine even “went on strike” due to excessive use. This article details the scene at the flagship store during the order surge, the real working conditions of the staff, and reveals that the “Zhizhi Ganpu” drink may soon be launched nationwide.
During last year’s National Day holiday, Heytea’s flagship store in Jiangmen Riverside quickly became a hotspot for visitors thanks to its store-exclusive drink, “Zhizhi Ganpu.” It not only topped both the overall sales and single-store daily sales charts but also attracted a large number of fans who specifically came to try it. This year during Labor Day, this historically significant flagship store was once again overwhelmed by consumer enthusiasm, with order volumes so astonishing that they left people speechless.
Judging from the scene, there was no long queue stretching into the middle of the road outside the flagship store as there was last year, and at first glance, the pedestrian flow didn’t seem particularly overwhelming. However, as soon as you open Heytea’s official mini-program, the message “1,002 drinks waiting to be prepared” immediately catches your eye, leaving many users exclaiming, “Who ordered a thousand Heytea drinks all at once?”
A staff member working at the flagship store revealed that as soon as the official mini-program opened for orders at the beginning of the Labor Day holiday, a massive number of requests flooded in instantly, with almost every second bringing new orders. As order volumes rapidly increased, the mini-program triggered its automatic order shutdown mechanism multiple times during business hours due to the backlog exceeding 1,000 drinks waiting to be made.
According to the staff member, the flagship store opened at 10 a.m. on May 2, and the mini-program automatically shut down due to the surge in orders before 11 a.m. That day, it was shut down a total of six times. By May 3, the record was broken again—within just 12 minutes of opening, the order volume had already exceeded 1,000, and the mini-program triggered the automatic shutdown mechanism seven times that day.
Many visitors joked that buying a limited-edition drink at Heytea’s flagship store is almost as difficult as snatching train tickets before a holiday. Not only do you have to constantly refresh the mini-program interface, but you also have to compete with countless other users for speed just to secure a cup.
Aside from complaints about the difficulty of purchasing, many people couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the hard work of the store employees upon seeing the astronomical figure of “1,002 drinks waiting to be prepared.” One customer picking up their order said that the Jiangmen Riverside store is actually only about twenty square meters in size, not very big, but during peak hours, the counter area was packed with over a dozen staff members, all of whom were extremely busy, moving around carefully.
Netizens even described the store employees as being like “perpetual motion machines,” working almost non-stop from morning till night. However, the staff clarified that although the store is indeed small, there were actually28 employeeson duty at the same time that day, filling both the counter and the preparation area. As for working hours, the staff revealed that each person worked an average of13 hours, from hammering the Ganpu, whipping the cheese, shaking the milk tea, serving drinks, to packing them up—there was hardly a moment to rest.
“By the end of the day, my feet were completely numb,” one employee admitted. He had thought that after going through peak periods during holidays like National Day, Spring Festival, and Qingming, and with proper preparation in terms of ingredients, manpower, and equipment, “Labor Day should have been manageable.” But reality proved otherwise—the enthusiasm of consumers far exceeded expectations, and they were already feeling the strain by the second day. “It was really intense, even the tea-brewing machine broke down from overuse.”
It’s worth mentioning that there have been recent online rumors suggesting that the flagship store’s exclusive “Zhizhi Ganpu” may soon be launched at stores nationwide. If the rumor is true, Heytea fans may no longer need to make a special trip to the Jiangmen flagship store, and can enjoy this popular limited-edition drink at their local branch, significantly lowering the barrier to trying it.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
