Hot and spicy: China cafe sells 300 cups of pepper-chilli coffee a day as quirky drinks craze sweeps country
- Locals love spices inspiring coffee shop to make fiery new drink
- Sliced peppers added to iced latte with hot chilli sprinkled on top
A coffee shop in China has raised eyebrows by putting fried chilli and hot pepper powder in their lattes.
Jingshi Coffee, a shop in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, eastern China, launched the spicy latte in December last year, it is now selling up to 300 cups a day, Pear Video reported.
A viral video clip on Douyin showed the outlet’s employees putting sliced peppers in a cup of iced latte then pouring hot pepper powder into the drink before serving it.
The new flavoured coffee costs about 20 yuan (US$2.80) a cup and is called Jiangxi Spicy Latte. It is well known that people from the region eat the spiciest food in China.
“I don’t think it is very spicy. On the contrary, it tastes fine,” one employee said, adding: “This coffee is not as weird as people might think.”
He said they asked for customer feedback on the new addition to the cafe’s coffee menu and almost all gave positive comments.
“The new pepper latte is not bad. It tastes slightly spicy and a little sweet,” said one person on the consumer products review app, Dianping.
Mainland social media sizzled with news of the hot new coffee flavour.
“I am stunned. It is absurdly abnormal,” one person commented on Douyin.
“I guess there might be back-end issues after consuming the spicy stuff,” another person quipped.
“It is creative. But I dare not try it because I fear it might upset my stomach,” said another.
Innovative combinations of coffee flavours have emerged across China in recent years.
In September 2023, customers queued for hours to buy a new coffee drink infused with the Chinese liquor, Moutai.
Last year, a cafe in eastern Zhejiang province mixed crushed preserved egg with latte, and many other shops soon followed suit.
In 2021, a coffee outlet in the northern province of Shanxi, added vinegar to its Americanos. The region is famous for its vinegar products, and the people who live there like to dip their food in the condiment.
