Are more "concentrated" tea and coffee products selling better? HEYTEA and NAYUKI have already taken action, and this category of raw materials is booming.

Drinks in October are collectively getting "richer and creamier"!

Heytea re-launches its classic Taro Bobo, Nayuki upgrades its Lava French Cocoa Mousse, Bawangchaji rolls out new product "Return to Yunnan · Small Butter Ripe Pu'er", Starbucks China launches the Soft Cheese Coffee series...

Both tea drinks and coffee are stepping into the "rich and creamy" track. How to create differentiation and brand recognition?

Heytea and Nayuki are both launching new products, a wave of "rich creamy drinks" is coming in autumn and winter

Entering October, a wave of "rich creamy drinks" has swept the market.

Heytea reproduces its classic Taro Bobo first launched in 2018, which combines taro paste, taro balls and cheese cloud top, bringing a substantial feeling that half of the cup is filled with ingredients, and is named "the life-saving milk tea for autumn and winter" by netizens.

Nayuki brings back its upgraded Lava French Cocoa Mousse, with vanilla cream ball stacked with cheese milk foam to create a dessert-level drinking experience, which immediately topped the sales list of all national stores after launch.

Bawangchaji's "Return to Yunnan · Small Butter Ripe Pu'er" blends butter with Pu'er tea to highlight the mellow aroma; Cha Baidao launches Caramel Biscuit Milk Tea nationwide, with freshly made biscuit sauce hanging on the cup wall, crushed biscuits paired with cheese milk foam, the combination of caramel aroma and crispy texture makes the texture reach full score.

Starbucks China launches the Soft Cheese Coffee Series, featuring a mascarpone soft cheese top of about 2cm thick; Lucky Coffee's Fuyun Vienna uses coffee cream to amplify the sense of satisfaction.

It is clearly felt that this year's autumn and winter new products are richer, thicker and more like desserts.

The supply chain side is also paying attention to this trend. At the HOTELEX Shenzhen Exhibition, Nestlé brought a series of creative applications such as the cream family and global milk coffee.

Relying on core raw materials such as light cream, milk and cheese dairy drinks, it creates characteristic milk tops such as banana cheese dome, Vienna cream top and three-bite cream, as well as creative small ingredients such as cheese balls, cake sauce, Gelato and rice pudding.

The "2026 Autumn and Winter Drink Trend Report" released on site points out that the demand for autumn and winter drinks is shifting from a single pursuit of "thickness" to the comprehensive pursuit of flavor concentration, taste texture and drinking experience. The brand's autumn and winter drink upgrade focuses on "thick but not greasy" to improve smoothness and drinkability.

There are 4 innovation directions to make the "richness" recognizable

Sorting out the recent new product launches of leading brands and combining the signals released by the exhibition, this year's rich drink innovation is concentrated in four aspects:

1. From flavor imitation to structural reproduction, continuous iteration of small ingredients

The dessertization of drinks has entered a new stage. In the past, most of them drew lessons from popular desserts such as cheese cakes, but now brands are more exploring niche desserts from all over the world, such as Cha Baidao's Lemon Bavarois Latte.

Products have also been upgraded from "similar in taste" to "structural reproduction". Besides restoring the flavor of desserts, brands begin to focus on building layers, so that consumers can clearly perceive the progressive flavor.

Small ingredients are an important carrier of this iteration. Traditional small ingredients are mainly pearls, coconut jelly and taro balls; now dairy-based dessert small ingredients have ushered in a big explosion of creativity, and cake sauce, cheese balls, cream balls and milk jelly are widely used.

The combination of dense, smooth, milky aroma and chewy feeling can better restore the flavor, texture and form of desserts.

Taking Nayuki's Lava French Cocoa Mousse as an example, it uses cheese milk foam, vanilla cream ball, vanilla milk jelly, etc., to present the layered structure of mousse desserts, with rich flavor but not heavy.

Nestlé's creative application Glutinous Milk Foam Silver Needle Tea combines rice mochi with Nestlé light cream and whips it to make a fluid glutinous milk foam.

2. Big explosion of cheese and butter milk base, richness upgrade

The mellow milky base is an important support for rich drinks.

The natural milky aroma of cheese and butter, coupled with the mellow taste and wrapping feeling brought by fat, makes the dessert sense of drinks more prominent.

Kamen's "2026 China Beverage Industry Product Report" shows that cheese is the mainstream flavor of coffee dairy innovation in 2025.

Popular products such as Bawangchaji's Return to Yunnan · Small Butter Ripe Pu'er, Taibennniu Little Cow Pearl Latte, and Luckin Coffee Little Butter Latte all create memory points with butter and cheese milk base.

Nestlé exhibited a number of special drinks such as Camello Salted Cheese Rooibos Latte, Salted Cheese Thai Tea Latte, Cheese Coconut Cloud Cold Brew, etc., all of which used Nestlé milk and cheese dairy drinks to present the rich taste.

3. "Strong tea" paired with rich milk to highlight the value of tea base

To make autumn and winter drinks richer, a strong tea flavor is a good complement.

Since last year, niche teas such as dark tea, Tibetan tea and roasted tea have shown strong growth momentum. These tea bases have high aroma recognition and a certain thickness by themselves, paired with rich milk base, the flavor concentration can reach a higher level.

At the ongoing Shenzhen exhibition, Nestlé has brought a number of creative applications:

Three Bites Boletus Tibetan Tea, Glutinous Milk Foam Silver Needle Tea, Roasted Tea Toffee Vienna use Tibetan tea, dark tea and roasted tea respectively, and then match with cheese and other elements to soften the astringency and make the tea aroma more prominent.

4. Cocoa takes the lead, and the popularity of nourishing sugar water continues

The classic category of cocoa is also constantly innovating. With its inherent warm and heavy attributes, high audience acceptance and high fault tolerance rate, it is almost a hit maker every autumn and winter.

This year, cocoa is generally upgraded to a direction with more memorable characteristics:

In addition to the Nayuki cocoa mousse series mentioned above, Yihetang has launched Mint Lava Cocoa, which uses mint to balance the heaviness of cocoa. Miusuan's Dubai Chocolate Yogurt Molato creates "a cup of rich dark chocolate ice cream".

At the same time, nourishing sugar water focusing on warm health preservation continues the popularity of last year. Before the National Day, Guming launched Peach Gum and Tapioca Pudding Milk, which forms differentiated complementarity with rich drinks and covers multiple scenarios.

Innovative dairy products enhance "flavor density" to realize product iteration

Overall observation, the core of this year's autumn and winter "richness" is still to use flavor superposition to create a sense of premium and differentiation.

The return of rich taste also gives more room for the play of milk base, milk top and dairy small ingredients.

But for stores, more innovation means more material SKUs and greater management pressure. The raw material solution of "one material for multiple uses" has become an urgent demand of the industry.

Nestlé ambient light cream has always been recognized as a "all-round player" in the industry. It has stable performance whether it is used to whip milk foam and cream top, compounded into milk base for milk tea and latte, or extended to Gelato and dairy small ingredients.

The later launched Nestlé Light Cream™ with rich and mellow flavor is further adapted to the refrigerated supply scenario. It is 35% pure animal fat cream with natural grass-fed butter aroma and richer milky flavor.

Another big hit of Nestlé, Milk and Cheese Dairy Drink, adopts an integrated formula, adding mascarpone cheese powder, which can meet the dual needs of top material whipping and base application without additional ingredients. The cold drink has clean and refreshing flavor, and the hot drink has full cheese aroma.

Relying on this adaptability to different temperatures and different scenarios, Nestlé has become the only designated dairy product for the 2026 World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship China Final, expanding the creative boundary of cream and cheese in professional special mixing scenarios.

In the current market, products with sufficient differentiation are easier to be remembered. Co-creation between brands and supply chains and customized dairy product development have become the norm.

Nestlé has set up a flexible customized production line as early as 2021, equipped with a senior R&D team, which can produce 1L formula samples in 1~2 weeks, helping brands quickly test and adjust products while ensuring stable supply.

Conclusion

Every round of new product launch is a process of demand insight and innovative iteration.

Mature dairy supply chains, diverse structures and classic raw materials can also help you find the traffic password.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Kamen" (ID: KamenClub), written by Zhang Jin, authorized to release by 36Kr.