On August 6, Luckin Coffee unveiled its latest offering for Qixi Festival: the “Qingqing Moli” milk tea, positioning it as a major annual release. This beverage, a collaboration with the celebrity brand Zanmang Loopy, comes with an oversized exclusive cup, custom sleeves, themed stores, and stickers. However, some customers have already labeled it the RMB 9.9 (USD 1.4) version of Chagee’s popular “Boya Juexian” milk tea.
“It’s practically the same as Chagee’s Boya Juexian,” commented an office worker from Chengdu’s Tianfu New Area. With both Luckin and Chagee conveniently located along his daily commute, he couldn’t resist trying the new drink. After sampling the sugar-free version, he found it nearly identical to Boya Juexian, with the key difference being that Luckin’s was cheaper.
Wu Qing, a regular at the Luckin store near Oppo’s Chengdu building, noted that while Qingqing Moli tasted better than Luckin’s previous tiramisu release, it still fell short of Boya Juexian. However, with Chagee’s drink priced at around RMB 20 (USD 2.8) per cup, she acknowledged, “People love a good deal, and Luckin often has coupons, so it feels more cost-effective.”
Even before its launch, Qingqing Moli had drawn comparisons to Boya Juexian online. On Xiaohongshu, the new drink was tagged as the budget version of Boya Juexian. Both beverages share similar ingredients: Boya Juexian includes jasmine snow buds, milk, and a blended non-hydrogenated milk base, while Qingqing Moli features jasmine tea, pure milk, light milk, green coffee extract, and flavored syrup. The packaging also mirrors Chagee’s style, featuring a traditional Chinese cup and a “three-tube straw.”
The taste comparison has sparked discussions among consumers. Many noted that Qingqing Moli has a milder tea flavor. Lao Li, a frequent customer of Luckin, Chagee, and Auntea Jenny, described Luckin’s version as creamier with a subtle tea taste, while Boya Juexian has a more pronounced tea flavor.
This sentiment is echoed online, with Xiaohongshu user “Mia Yaya” describing the new drink as similar to Boya Juexian, but with “more muted flavors,” dubbing it the “diluted version.”
Both brands emphasize health benefits in their marketing. Boya Juexian’s medium cup has 130 calories, roughly equivalent to half an avocado, while Qingqing Moli highlights its low-calorie content, equating a large cup to about 1.5 apples. Both drinks use jasmine tea from Hengzhou, though the scenting process differs: Boya Juexian undergoes three to five scentings, while Luckin claims Qingqing Moli uses seven.
Luckin’s focus on details suggests a strategic play to carve out a niche in the competitive market. Though tea drinks and coffee have traditionally occupied different segments, Luckin’s recent launches, including Qingqing Moli, have blurred these lines. In July, Luckin introduced non-coffee drinks like classic lemon tea and matcha lemon tea, and the “Dancong Latte,” made with oolong tea, which pushed the brand further into tea territory.
The competition between Luckin and Chagee is intensifying, particularly as Luckin expands aggressively. Chagee sold 230 million cups of Boya Juexian in 2023 alone, representing a significant portion of its sales. Luckin, meanwhile, has strategically narrowed the scope of its longstanding RMB 9.9 promotion and is opening new stores near Chagee locations.
As both brands continue to vie for consumer spending in a saturated market, their products are becoming increasingly similar. Chagee has even positioned its offerings as functional “tea lattes,” challenging coffee’s dominance as the go-to energizing drink.
Coffee, often viewed as the lifeblood of working professionals, is prized for its energizing effect. However, in May, Chagee launched its annual product, “Wanli Mulan,” which boasts 292.8 milligrams of tea polyphenols per cup, with some consumers reporting that it’s so strong they couldn’t sleep after drinking it.
Typically known for its fruit teas, Chagee is now leveraging both health and functional attributes to compete.
Luckin’s response, including the launch of tea-coffee crossover drinks like the “Biluo Zhichun Latte,” which sold over 4.47 million cups in its first week, shows its intention to compete directly with Chagee’s rapid growth.
Yet, Luckin isn’t the first to try replicating Boya Juexian.
In July, GoodMe launched a RMB 9.9 fresh milk tea promotion featuring its “Yunling Molibai” drink, with a calorie count of 141 calories per cup, equivalent to about half an avocado. It also uses jasmine from Hengzhou. That same month, Heytea rolled out its new product standard, emphasizing healthy tea beverages with its “Xiaonaimo” jasmine milk tea, boasting an eight-step scenting process and claiming to be the lowest-fat light milk tea on the market. This reduced-fat version claims to cut fat by 40% and calories by over 15%.
This competitive pressure at the brand level has already rippled upstream, driving up both the transaction volume and price of jasmine tea. According to the China Tea Marketing Association (CTMA), jasmine raw material transactions in Hengzhou rose to 695 tons in May and 1,930 tons in June, up 13.4% and 19% year-on-year, with corresponding transaction values of RMB 47.955 million (USD 6.7 million) and RMB 138.96 million (USD 19.4 million). Additionally, the transaction value of fresh jasmine flowers in Hengzhou saw an 84.8% year-on-year increase in June, while the average price rose by 44.6%.
For Luckin, Qingqing Moli is clearly an effort to expand into new consumer scenarios. Unlike coffee, which peaks in the morning, Qingqing Moli is aimed squarely at the afternoon tea crowd, positioning itself as the “afternoon tea” alternative to Chagee.
A Meituan delivery driver with the last name Lu, based in Beijing, confirmed this trend. He told 36Kr that orders for Qingqing Moli were usually concentrated around midday. However, he noted that the product wasn’t as popular as Luckin’s renowned sauce-flavored latte, with most orders still consisting of classic products. Among the three deliveries he was holding, all were iced americanos.
After seeing the new Qingqing Moli on social media, a Chinese consumer named Xiao He wasn’t tempted and stuck to ordering a green grape tea beverage from Luckin. He mentioned that he drinks 2–3 cups of coffee per week but doesn’t like strong coffee flavors. This time, he bought his drink using a RMB 3.9 (USD 0.5) coupon he found on Douyin, adding that he usually pays just RMB 9.9.
Whether it’s Luckin or other tea beverage competitors, the mass emulation of Boya Juexian shows that leading brands are all eager to capture a share of Chagee’s growth.
As the peak beverage season of 2024 passes its midpoint, Luckin, which previously relied on blockbusters like the sauce-flavored latte to revive its performance, is also awaiting its next big hit.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Yang Yafei for 36Kr.