When we run our coffee innovation workshops (aptly named Sip, Innovate, Repeat), our coffee-drinking participants often raise an eyebrow when they come across menu items like Orange Americano or Cheese Latte from Luckin Coffee.
But here are some fun facts that might change your mind — or at least make you curious enough to try one.
Take the Cheese Latte, for example:
- Launch date: October 10, 2022 (one of 140 SKUs launched that year)
- Product positioning: A milk-based coffee blending milk and cheese, positioned internally as a hero product
- How to make a cup of Cheese Latte:
- Launch-day sales: 1.31 million cups
- First-week sales: 6.59 million cups
Luckin even released special posters to celebrate these milestones. 
(Image translation: (left) “Cheese Latte breaks records! Single-day sales exceed 1.31 million cups”; (right) “Blockbuster Hit! Cheese Latte total sales exceed 6.59 million cups during its launch week”)
Luckin Coffee wasn’t the first to put cheese in a drink. Many freshly-made beverage brands in China — including Heytea, Naixue, and others — have long offered cheese foam as a topping for tea or fruit-based drinks.
So what made Luckin’s Cheese Latte stand out?
Several factors played a role in its success: the novelty of cheese in coffee (a category that’s still relatively new to many Chinese consumers), a well-optimised supply chain, accessible pricing, algorithm-driven marketing, and a formidable R&D engine.
We break down these elements in our latest report, Inside Luckin Coffee: Strategy, model, and international playbook. But we’ll give you a peek into what powers Luckin’s product pipeline — its R&D system.
Luckin Coffee’s product does not need to be the 1st in the market
When it comes to product development, Luckin Coffee doesn’t always chase “firsts”, nor does it rely on the R&D director’s “gut feel.”, or the nostalgic “my grandmother’s recipe” story.
Instead, Luckin Coffee takes a data- and process-driven approach. Decisions on what to launch next are based on customer behaviour, market signals, and structured internal testing. In this system, data outweighs human judgment, and the R&D processes are rigorous, repeatable, and followed to the dot.
Take the Cheese Latte, for example — here’s a glimpse into how Luckin Coffee brought it to life:
- Planning: Cheese Latte wasn’t born out of impulse — it was aligned with Luckin Coffee’s broader “Big Coffee Strategy” and interest in cheese-flavoured beveragesProduct Designing: Cheese Latte was chosen to be developed as a hero product and received top-level attention and resources, with leadership closely involved from the start.Testing & Iterating: Went through 17 rounds of internal testing over 7 months, including a soft launch in 4 cities alongside competing concepts — a tactic referred to as “horse racing.”Launching: Backed by strong test results and internal data, Cheese Latte was rolled out nationally on 10 October 2022 — with the launch date itself chosen strategically.
Performance Evaluation: On launch day, Cheese Latte sold 1.31 million cups — making it one of Luckin’s most successful product debuts.
This is a fun, simple way to depict Luckin Coffee’s R&D process. While many F&B chains follow a similar flow — research, iterate, launch, and monitor — Luckin Coffee takes the data- and process-driven approach to a whole new level. (We dive deeper into this in our report: Inside Luckin Coffee: Strategy, model, and international playbook) .
We believe this was the same process for Coconut Latte (2021), Orange Americano (2023), as well as the famous Moutai Latte (2023).
What sets Luckin Coffee apart is that it behaves more like a tech company than a traditional F&B brand — with structured workflows, internal benchmarks, and system-wide coordination.
This is one reason why (1) Luckin Coffee doesn’t need to be first to market with new drink ideas, and (2) it can launch more than 119 new SKUs in 2024 alone. That’s about 10 every month.
So, (when) will Cheese Latte land in America?
Luckin Coffee has already expanded into Singapore and Malaysia, where it launched “Big Cheese Latte” in Singapore. But as of now, the original Cheese Latte has yet to make its debut in the U.S.
Could it land this autumn, just like it did in China — leveraging similar weather patterns and seasonal moods? And if it does, will American consumers embrace this innovation, or fall back to the good old pumpkin spice?
One thing’s for sure: Luckin’s data team is likely watching this very closely.
To learn more about Luckin Coffee’s strategy, innovation and expansion, and how this translates to the wider ecosystem, download our latest report here!
The post How can Luckin Coffee launch 119 new drinks in a year first appeared on The Low Down - Momentum Works.
