They stand in groups of three or five at the commanding heights of the workplace, not only the colors from yellow to black are rainbow colors, but also the appearance and duck attributes are different. Some are like rapper ducks who are about to sing you skr right away, while others are Victoria's Secret ducks wearing luxurious pearls and gorgeous wings.
The right image source: Little Red Book @ King only plays Little Joe
These ducks are all from a lemon tea brand that has recently become popular in the forest, buy a cup and get one free, and you can choose your favorite duck and accessories through messages and codes. A cup of lemon tea for more than 20 yuan, just for a duck? "Pinduoduo 20 yuan can directly buy a pocket of duck and accessories, not better than drinking lemon tea in the forest?"
Source: Little Red Book@Elaine☁️
Drink lemon tea, duck is more important than tea. Nowadays, these seemingly ordinary and even a little ugly ducklings have been played into a tide play, and under the guidance of various [Duck Codes for Success] on social platforms, young people have drunk cup after cup of sugar water with the mentality of stamp collecting and gambling.
It's like a big gamble on the mind and body, the trader is a lemon tea clerk, and you get either dopamine or a physical burden.
"I'm almost drinking it for a duck diabetes, and I'm hedging it with tea and coffee these days."
When my peers had a second child and a chicken baby, I raised ducks; When my peers were worried about milk powder money and school district housing, I pondered how I could exchange the code word for an ugly duck.
As a duck farmer who has just entered the pit, I didn't understand at first that I paid more than 20 yuan for lemon tea for a duck. "Don't be funny, people in their 20s, really drinking lemon tea for ducks?"
Until I ordered my first glass of forest 2 months ago. When I opened the menu, I realized that today's lemon tea is no longer the traditional frozen lemon tea I thought, but as colorful as milk tea, in addition to the tea base and perfume lemon, there are seasonal fruits and various vegetables.
When I first bought it, I didn't understand the curves of the duck code, but I just made a simple note "want an ugly duck".
When I got the first duck, I knew it was right, I was caught by the duck. Looking at this blood-red duck body, with two circles and confused eyes, isn't it me who is passionate but trapped in a part-time job and is being transferred?
And this angular all-green helmet, in addition to covering up a bald duck, but also with red with a wide opening and closing of the northeast local culture of the tune directly hit the hearts of workers, thinking that this is a joint name with "second-hand roses"?
Hydrogen commercial photo, my ugly ducks
Since the first duck is really close to my heart, I went further and further on the road of duck breeding, and began to learn the so-called "latest forest duck acquisition code" in the Little Red Book. But then I found out that even if you know that you memorize the rules and write 50 words of takeaway notes every time, you may not be able to get the same duck from netizens.
"The clerk has the idea of the clerk, and every time he doesn't care what I want, just what he wants to give."
"Why do I buy 2 cups of lemon tea with only one duck?" "Why is my remarks useless?" ...... In the face of the question of a large number of consumers, Lin Li headquarters once tried to work hard, "The official announcement of the duck duck exchange rate is globally unified, a cup of tea and a duck, even if it has no stores abroad, but it is globally unified." The Foodie Institute noted.
But most of the shops in the forest are franchise-based, and franchisees have their own business experience, and the matter of sending ducks has become Schrödinger's duck. Nowadays, even if the headquarters specifies the rules, the franchisee can still say with a straight face: I can send it as I want.
The reality is so cruel, it's like I've been working four days in a row, and it's Tuesday. But as a committed duck farmer, setbacks after setbacks can't stop us from continuing to write "small essays" the next time we order takeout, and even fill in [volunteer] at the beginning of the remarks:
Look at the beautiful duck, the source @ King only plays Little Joe, @小黄同学Chloe
One volunteer wants two pot head duck; Two Volunteer Hope Camera Ducks; Three volunteer wishing princess ducks. Please, Duckman, you are the unsung hero.
But if you can show this kind of perseverance when you study back then, there are a few more high and low in Qingbei.
Getting the duck is only the first step, duck breeders duck people, the focus is on how to "raise".
Ducks sent in the forest generally consist of two parts, a naked duck and accessories.
Looking at naked ducks alone makes a lot of difference. The expression reveals the joy, anger and sorrow of the ducks, like my ducks are not very smart at first glance; In addition to the colorful body, some ducks also have a shiny whole body and a bit of Middle Eastern momentum; Some ducks have mutated directly into limited edition cat ducks, dog ducks, and panda ducks.
Ugly cute panda duck, picture source Little Red Book @ Yawn Little Fish 🐟
Accessories are another way to make duck owners want more. A bottle of Maotai, a string of large pearls, and a pair of large wings... With them, ducks have souls. Duck farmers also play outfits, fashion shows and beauty pageants for their "children".
A little duck is given more and more meaning, so in the spirit of drinking it is better to drink than to give something, the young man placed an order in the forest again and again. Even if they know that their notes may not work, this is the joy of small gambling, because there may be surprises.
In order to meet the philatelic psychology of young people, Lin Li also intimately introduced the duck exchange rule, 10 ducklings for 1 medium duck, 30 ducklings for 1 big duck, just to let the duck breeders' poultry farms grow day by day.
Duck's "Four Generations in the Same House", picture source Xiaohongshu @ Tweet Qiuqiu Sauce
"So why can't you go directly to Pinduoduo to buy it, do you look down on Yiwu?" One netizen said that he did not understand the young man's new era to buy and return the beads, "For a girl in the ducky office for a month, she has been drinking for a month, and now she is competing with her weight." ”
These ducks may not really be available in Yiwu. Xiaohongshu blogger @GuoYingGuoClever said that he helped design the latest cat and duck in the forest. "It's a pity that the factory has the idea of the factory", he replied in the comment area in the face of a question from netizens that the goods were not correct.
Image source: Little Red Book @ GuoClever
"You asked me to buy a cup of lemon tea alone, Lin Li must not be my first choice; If you ask me to buy ducks and accessories alone, I will most likely not do it; But you tell me that you can send ducks by buying lemon tea, and I am a thief. ”
The duck photos of netizens are dozens of duck and duck legions, which makes it seem that my three melons and two ducks are very bumpy. It is said that Linli easily achieved a small goal by sending 100 million ducks last year. The Little Red Book entry #Little Yellow Duck# also has nearly 100 million views.
Hydrogen commercial photography, rapper of the same label, goes eight miles underground battle on the left, and writes lyrical rap on the right
In 2012, when Linli was just founded, it launched the Little Duck IP, and Little Duck "has the characteristics of weak education, low cost and high frequency," pointed out Su Chang, marketing director of Linli.
Who bathed in childhood without a duckling? The bath artifacts of my childhood changed wave after wave, baby gold water became a dead memory, and only the little yellow duck became a toy that my 2-year-old niece and I shared.
I am also surprised that the little yellow duck can still pass on the family, and what is even more surprising is that it has been with generations of children for almost 100 years as a bath artifact. In 1949, American sculptor Peter Gannan designed the first rubber duck toy that could be put on the surface of the water, and applied for a patent for 14 years that year.
Lin Li chose the little yellow duck very cleverly, because this toy has been free of patent restrictions since 60 years of the last century and has become the image of the public domain.
Looking at the duck that is now almost 100 years old, my daily play is a little presumptuous, this is obviously the yellow duck grandma.
Grandma Yellow Duck is not the only killer in the forest, and the forest is not the only lemon tea brand trying to get out of the neighborhood. Compared with selling tea, today's lemon tea brand is more like a trendy brand store that sells peripherals, lemon tea is a side business, and peripheral is the main business.
Similar to the yellow duck in the forest, there are also the little green crocodiles of the lemon season, and the bitter melon pig of the tea saving planet, all of which are given away in a cup, and watching the duck, pig, fish, and animal legions on the consumer's table grow stronger and stronger, it is hard not to doubt that the lemon tea industry has a heart that wants to open a zoo. However, there is obviously no forest around the latter two, because I have not yet seen pig and fish farmers.
Source: Little Red Book @ Grandpa's toy cabinet, @茶救星球
In addition to completing the tide of small animals, the other peripherals of lemon tea are mainly close to the trend and win ordinary people.
Lin Li once gave duck rings, duck water guns, and Ming Ji gave inflatable sofas for music festivals. But the most out-of-the-loop is the hole shoes.
Source: Little Red Book@LINLEE Lin Li Hand Beat Lemon Tea, @茶救星球
This summer's "ugly shoes" cave shoes have become a must-have for trendy people, Lin Li launched a 48.8 yuan cave shoes package, the color of the shoes is lemon green, no one dares to say that you are not trendy when you go out on the street, the point is that it also sends free shoe flowers, as if secretly poked and poked: "This is not taking you yet?" ”
Hole shoes in the forest, source Xiaohongshu@LINLEE Lin Li Hand Beat Lemon Tea
It even sparked a dispute over lemon tea's hole shoes. Around June, as soon as Lin Li launched the cave shoe package, it became popular Little Red Book, and it was sold out not long after it was launched, and within a few days, Tea Save Planet also said that it had a cave shoe activity, but it was launched in August. "We've been working hard for months to plan a plan, just copy?" There are employees in the forest complaining online.
Tea wine planet's cave shoes, picture source Xiaohongshu @ tea save planet as a consumer watching the two quarrel, at that time I was not unmoved, but simply because the hand speed was not as good as the person and lost consecutive battles. According to Linli's official data, more than 300,000 pairs were booked nationwide three days after the Dongdongshoe event was launched, bringing 12 million sales to Linli. Of course, such data can't be seen if it is the same as Heytea who can sell a small target casually in one day, but for lemon tea itself, it has soared like a rocket. Look at a set of data comparison: red meal big data shows that as of the end of April this year, the number of lemon tea specialty stores in the country reached 9,678. Among them, the largest number of stores is the lime season, which has been surging all the way in recent years, which has just opened 2,000 stores recently, and there are more than 1,000 stores in Laoerlin. The number of stores of a brand in Michelle Ice City exceeds 25,000.
That is to say, in the number of stores, a snow king directly hangs a category. Perhaps in terms of turnover, Snow King can also be compared, 36Kr once formed lemon tea is a "ten billion track", and Snow King has operated more than 10 billion in 2021.
A category is "crushed" by a brand to a certain extent, on the one hand, because Snow King's products take the mass route, on the other hand, because lemon tea is actually very boring, and the combination of tea base and lemon is not cheap.
The base of the recently popular tea is phoenix single fir tea, and further because of the duck poop fragrance out of the circle, only 10 kinds of China's top ten famous teas have been played. And lemons are even more lackluster, nothing more than a struggle between yellow lemons and perfume lemons, even if the plantation has cut perfume lemons into 2 grades according to size, skin, and taste, it is only two differences.
So lemon tea is now trying to move closer to milk tea. Wang Jie, the founding partner of Lemon Season, once told me, "Tea and lemon are only the basics, and now they are also trying to add some elements like milk tea to the product." ”
In the past, lemon tea was either reddish-brown or green, and the ingredients were often Cantonese-style herbal tea traditional ingredients, such as American ginseng, tangerine peel, mulberry leaves, etc., or bitter melon, coriander and celery that sounded healthy.
Now lemon tea is relatively richer, with grapes and pomegranates such seasonal fruits, the cat and duck sent by the forest this time is the matching pomegranate series. It's just that it's not like lemon tea, although the "seabed coconut iced lemon tea" in the forest is labeled with coconut milk, but if you tear off the label, you will find that it seems to be no different from other milk tea shop drinks.
Image source: Xiaohongshu @ Xiaozheng, a dry rice man
The limited expansion space of lemon tea itself, coupled with the different tastes, has led to the fact that it is difficult for 10 lemon teas to go out of Guangdong in one street in Guangzhou. It was not until this year that the Tea and Wine Planet and Lin Li began to enter Beijing, and the boss Lemon Season still did not leave for the north.
Now that the little lemon tea has finally rushed into the field of vision of young people by the surrounding area, some people are willing to pay, "Really drink the forest for lemon tea?" ", some people also asked:
Isn't it just a cup of tea and a few slices of lemon tea, why is it so expensive?
Generally, the single bottle of the chain lemon tea brand is priced at about 20 yuan, and the stalls of the subway entrance entrepreneurial group also cost 10-15 yuan, but the actual cost price may only be 3 yuan. Xiaohongshu netizen @ grumpy hot dog without considering labor and loss, calculate the cost price of a cup of duck poop lemon tea 3 yuan. (Perfume lemon 1 yuan, duck poop fragrance 5 jiao, sucrose syrup 5 jiao, packaging fee 1 yuan)
Similarly, the cost price given by perfume lemon grower @poppinglime-Guangdong perfume lemon orchard is 3.31 yuan.
Source: Little Red Book @ Pop Lime - Guangdong perfume lemon orchard
The price of 6 times is actually not an exaggeration, after all, when Uncle Qiu established his first store in Guangzhou, the target user was the group of upstart programmers who were not bad at money. But now even the coffee milk tea that has always been high is rolled to 9.9 yuan, and the lemon tea that is still maintained at 20 yuan is a little ungrounded.
If a cup of coffee should sell for 9.9 yuan, then lemon tea should deal with it?
Of course, if you sell health, sell trends, that's another value.
Tiger Sniff once pointed out that lemon tea "the most critical thing is actually the competition around young users." Today's young people can't wait to eat a bite of fried chicken to lose weight, in Xiaohongshu there will always be unexpected ways to lose weight, and health is also another selling point that lemon tea tries to come out.
Xie Yuqiang, founder of Uncle Duck Poop Lemon Tea Hill, once shared a story that as a typical middle-aged man with a belly, he almost did not drink milk tea before, and directly encountered lemon tea, and the concept of "healthier" is also one of the reasons why he created the brand.
Source: Little Red Book @ Uncle Qiu Lemon Tea
But is lemon tea really healthy?
There is a lot of discussion about whether lemon tea can go to sugar. Many netizens have tried a handful of unsweetened lemon tea with a healthy heart, and the feedback is all "more bitter than Chinese medicine", and Lemon Season directly wrote the three big words "extremely difficult to drink" after not adding additional sugar. "The amount of sugar added to each product has been blended many times, and there must be a reason for adding sugar." Wang Jie shared.
In fact, most chain brands of lemon tea on the market today are modified versions. Old Guang people are accustomed to drinking bitter and sweet herbal tea, and Guangdong Province is also the base camp of lemon tea, but when lemon tea goes out of Guangdong, it is already a version of sweetened and sweetened.
So lemon tea sugar content really can't be adjusted?
No, because only sweet enough can become a national drink like milk tea.
Life is already very bitter, and there are not several times a year when I have the opportunity to work 8 days in a row, so it must be sweet. But a little less sugar is not enough dopamine, just like a duck in the forest, but an ordinary little will not satisfy young people.
Opening image source Little Red Book: @小林兜圈
Cover image source: Image source Little Red Book @ Yawn Xiaoyu 🐟