Yongpu Coffee (永璞) Brand Profile: Flash-Brew Concentrate, the Stone-Lion Mascot & SWOT Analysis

Founded in Shanghai in 2014, Yongpu is a Chinese new-consumer coffee brand built around portable specialty coffee and one of the pioneers of the coffee concentrate category in China. Shelf-stable "flash brew" concentrate, a stone-lion mascot called Shi Duanzheng (石端正) and more than 600 brand collaborations drove roughly 20x sales growth between 2019 and 2022, to about RMB 400 million. In the RMB 9.9 coffee price war, it chose radical value, cutting the price of a single concentrate stick to RMB 3–4.

#1. Brand Snapshot

Item	Details
Name	Yongpu Coffee (Chinese: 永璞, Yǒngpú)
Founded	August 2014, Shanghai
Founder	Hou Yongpu (侯永璞), nicknamed "Tiepi" (铁皮). Born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu in 1985, he studied design at the China Academy of Art. The brand is named after him
Co-founder	Yu Ye (郁晔), COO
Operating company	Shanghai Yongpu Cultural & Creative Co., Ltd.
Core categories	Coffee concentrate ("flash brew"), freeze-dried coffee, drip-bag coffee, tea concentrates
Brand mascot	Shi Duanzheng (石端正), a cartoon based on the traditional Chinese stone lion (launched 2019)
Price point	About RMB 3–4 per concentrate stick (down from about RMB 7–8)
Sales	About RMB 400 million in 2022; RMB 450–500 million expected for 2023
Funding	Angel and Series A (2020); Series A+ of over RMB 50 million (2021)
Investors	Xinxian Capital (the Qiaqia family fund), Qinqin Foods, Kuanzhai Ventures, Jinding Capital, Maxwell Capital (麦星投资), Zhongyuan Capital and others
Channels	About 80% online (Tmall, JD.com, Douyin and others); offline in Hema (Freshippo), Ole', City'Super, convenience stores and membership warehouse stores
Users	About 2 million followers; core audience is women aged 20–40
Brand collaborations	More than 600

#2. Timeline

Year	Milestone
University	In his final year at the China Academy of Art, Tiepi decides he will "spend his life making coffee"
August 2014	Founds Yongpu in Shanghai with RMB 300,000, starting with drip-bag coffee and other portable instant products
Early 2017	Tiepi mortgages his home in Suzhou to invest in a factory in Qingdao and develop portable cold brew concentrate. The product needs refrigeration, which limits where it can be used
Early 2018	Launches cold brew concentrate, opens a Tmall store and starts building the brand in earnest
2019	Partners with a Japanese family-owned factory with more than 70 years of history to adopt flash-brew technology that keeps the concentrate fresh. Launches the Shi Duanzheng mascot. Online sales reach about RMB 20 million
June 2020	Raises an angel round in the tens of millions of RMB from Xinxian Capital, Qinqin Foods, Kuanzhai Ventures and others
July 2020	Launches shelf-stable flash-brew concentrate on Tmall. It needs no refrigeration, lasts 365 days, and becomes a Tmall best-seller within six months
November 2020	Double 11 sales of about RMB 21 million, ranking No. 1 in Tmall's coffee concentrate category
December 2020	Raises a Series A in the tens of millions of RMB led by Jinding Capital. Full-year sales exceed RMB 100 million, about 5x growth
2021	Raises a Series A+ of more than RMB 50 million led by Maxwell Capital and Zhongyuan Capital. E-commerce sales triple to about RMB 300 million, again No. 1 in Tmall's concentrate category. In October launches tea sub-brand "Xique Yuanye" (喜鹊原野), which closes six months later
2022	Shanghai's Covid lockdown briefly halts warehouse shipments, yet April sales still beat expectations. Full-year sales reach about RMB 400 million
2023	The RMB 9.9 coffee price war breaks out and Yongpu cuts concentrate prices to RMB 3–4. Its "Bing Bing Cup" (冰冰杯) with Hema sells 1 million cups in its first week. Sub-brand CITYBORING (城是) opens two stores in Shanghai, and Yongpu begins testing convenience-store and membership-warehouse channels
2024 onward	Continues to grow online and offline channels, adding new formats such as freeze-dried coffee cubes, matcha concentrate and capsule-style concentrate

#3. Product Portfolio

#3.1 Core Product: Flash-Brew Coffee Concentrate

Yongpu's core insight: drip bags can only make black coffee, but most people want milk drinks such as lattes. A concentrate turns into a coffee with just milk or water. It is more convenient than a drip bag and better suited to milk and iced drinks.

Feature	Details
Concentration	About 10x (traditional cold brew is about 6x)
Freshness technology	Nitrogen flushing and aseptic packaging plus Japanese flash-cooling; shelf-stable at room temperature for 365 days, with no preservatives
Nutrition	Zero fat, zero sugar
Packaging	25 g single-serve sticks for portability
Flavours	Black coffee, hazelnut, yuzu, cherry blossom and other flavoured concentrates; tea concentrates such as black tea, Uji matcha and white peach oolong
Price	About RMB 9.9 for 3 sticks; about RMB 27.9 for 7

#3.2 Product Range

Category	Key Products	Role
Coffee concentrate	Flash-brew sticks, boxes and 50-capsule packs	Core product for milk and iced coffee
Freeze-dried coffee	Freeze-dried powder and gift boxes of freeze-dried cubes; oolong and other flavoured freeze-dried blends	Competes with Saturnbird and others
Drip bags	Yunnan-only black coffee drip bags, made with beans from the Yunnan "Shi Duanzheng Estate"	The category where the brand started
Tea concentrates	Uji matcha, black tea, white peach oolong	Reaches non-coffee drinkers
Collaborations and limited editions	"Bing Bing Cup" with Hema and others	Offline hit products
Lifestyle merchandise	Cups, coasters, cushions, scented candles, milk frothers, and the print magazine Islanders' Monthly (岛民月刊)	Builds a lifestyle-brand image

Note: Yongpu still does not sell whole coffee beans, which it considers "not convenient enough" for its brand promise.

#4. Business Model

#4.1 "Portable Specialty Coffee"

Yongpu's mission is "to let everyone who loves life easily enjoy a good cup of coffee." It focuses on convenient coffee at home, at the office and on the go. It competes in the same specialty-instant space as Saturnbird but from a different angle:

Dimension	Saturnbird	Yongpu
Core category	Freeze-dried powder ("super instant")	Coffee concentrate
Price per cup	About RMB 5–8	About RMB 3–4
Brand assets	Numbered mini cups, Return Plan	Stone-lion mascot, collaborations
Brand tone	Specialty, space theme, "worldview"	Chinese culture, creative merchandise, emotional value

#4.2 Owning the Supply Chain

Tiepi believes "new-consumer brands must control their raw materials and supply chain":

Factory stakes: Holds stakes in a roastery, a cold brew factory, a drip-bag factory and a packaging factory, with factories in Qingdao, Guangzhou and Fujian.
Warehousing: Warehouses in Qingdao, Kunshan, Shanghai, Suzhou and elsewhere.
Raw materials: Buys directly from leading green-coffee traders to control costs. It has partner estates in Yunnan, which it expanded about threefold in 2021 versus 2020. Reports also mention a partner estate in Jamaica's Blue Mountains.
Flexible supply chain: After production stopped and stock ran out during Shanghai's 2022 lockdown, it invested in a more flexible supply chain.

#4.3 Owned Channels and Community

The Shi Duanzheng mascot: Based on the traditional Chinese stone lion, it anchors the "Yongpu Island" (永璞小岛) brand world and a print magazine.
Community: User groups such as "Shi Duanzheng's Coffee Life Institute", events such as an "Inspiration Art Festival", and a "UFO Return Plan" similar to Saturnbird's cup-recycling programme.
Repeat purchase: Some products have quarterly repurchase rates of about 26–28%.
Helping other brands acquire users: Its "Island Express" (小岛宅急便) snack box (RMB 39.9, limited to 500) helps other new-consumer brands reach new customers.

#5. Performance Data

Yongpu is private and does not publish full financials. The figures below come from public reports.

Period	Sales	Notes
2019	About RMB 20 million	Online sales
2020	Over RMB 100 million	About 5x growth after launching shelf-stable concentrate; Tmall about 90% of sales; Double 11 about RMB 21 million, No. 1 in Tmall's concentrate category
2021	About RMB 300 million	E-commerce sales tripled; No. 1 in Tmall's concentrate category
2022	About RMB 400 million	About 20x growth from 2019 to 2022
2023 (forecast)	RMB 450–500 million	Company forecast
2024 onward	Not disclosed	—

Analysis:

Rapid growth (2019–2022): Shelf-stable flash-brew concentrate removed the need to refrigerate cold brew. Combined with category support from Tmall, which created a dedicated "coffee concentrate" sub-category for it, and frequent collaborations, sales grew about 20x in four years.
Price war (from 2023): RMB 9.9 café coffee from Luckin and Cotti, and Lucky Cup at RMB 5–6, reset what consumers expect to pay for a coffee. Yongpu cut single-stick prices from RMB 7–8 to RMB 3–4, betting on radical value.
Transparency: No reliable public sales figures since 2023.

#6. Brand and Marketing

#6.1 Positioning

"A lifestyle coffee brand with Chinese cultural character": portable, tasty, playful, emotionally rewarding. Key words: coffee concentrate, Shi Duanzheng, collaborations, Chinese culture, emotional value.

#6.2 The Shi Duanzheng Mascot

Launched in 2019, Shi Duanzheng is a cute cartoon version of the traditional Chinese stone lion and Yongpu's core visual asset. Around it, Yongpu has built the "Yongpu Island" brand world, a magazine and creative merchandise, turning a coffee brand into a creative-goods brand. This reflects the founder's design background.

#6.3 Brand Collaborations: 600+

Yongpu is one of the most prolific collaborators among Chinese new-consumer brands, with more than 600 collaborations over nine years:

Field	Example Partners
Film and TV	The film Better Days (少年的你), the debate show U Can U BiBi (奇葩说)
Online media and content	NetEase Cloud Music, Xiaohongshu, The Paper, Rishiji (日食记)
Art and IP	Van Gogh Museum, Hello Kitty, SNOOPY
Food and drink	Dairy Queen, Wuliangye (a coffee-and-baijiu cocktail), Zui E Niang (醉鹅娘)
Retail	Hema ("Bing Bing Cup")

#6.4 Emotional Value

Tiepi believes consumers increasingly care about "emotional value". Through its mascot, collaborations and creative merchandise, Yongpu aims to give people fun and a sense of belonging beyond the coffee itself.

#7. Sustainability

Yunnan coffee: Has worked with Yunnan coffee growers since 2018, expanding partner estates and launching Yunnan-only drip bags to support Chinese-grown coffee.
UFO Return Plan: A community recycling activity that encourages users to take part in environmental action.
Note: The brand publishes little detailed sustainability information.

#8. Challenges and Risks

Issue	Details
Price war	RMB 9.9 café coffee and RMB 5–6 budget coffee squeezed concentrate pricing, forcing Yongpu down to RMB 3–4 and pressuring margins
Online dependence	About 80% of sales are online, mostly through Tmall, and traffic costs are rising
Hard offline shift	The goal is a 50/50 online-offline split within three years, but convenience-store and warehouse-club channels are still in testing
Category competition	Luckin, Starbucks and other chains have launched concentrates, and Nestlé and Sumida River (隅田川) are also active; barriers to entry are low
Sub-brand misfires	Tea brand Xique Yuanye closed after six months; CITYBORING stores remain few
Supply chain risk	Production stopped and stock ran out during the Covid lockdown; rising green-coffee prices push up costs
Limited transparency	No performance data since 2023, making the business hard to assess

#9. Competitive Landscape

Type	Key Players	Relationship to Yongpu
New portable-coffee brands	Saturnbird, Sumida River, Shicui (时萃), Eagle Coffee (鹰集)	Direct rivals in specialty instant
Chains' retail products	Luckin (concentrates, instant range), Starbucks	Use store traffic and brand strength to scale fast online
Traditional instant giants	Nestlé, Maxwell House	Dominate mass-market instant
Imported freeze-dried	Moccona, UCC	Compete for black-coffee drinkers
Freshly made coffee	Luckin, Cotti, Lucky Cup	The RMB 9.9 price point draws demand from portable coffee
Ready-to-drink coffee	Nestlé, Nongfu Spring and others	Compete for convenience-store and outdoor occasions

#10. Channel Mix

Online first: Tmall was about 90% of sales in 2020; online overall was about 80% in 2023, across Tmall, JD.com, Douyin and top livestreamers such as Li Jiaqi.
Offline expansion: Sold in premium supermarkets such as Hema, Ole', City'Super and Jiuguang department stores, and testing convenience stores and warehouse clubs, with a focus on East and South China.
Own stores: Sub-brand CITYBORING has two stores in Shanghai offering coffee, desserts and merchandise at RMB 25–168.
Target: A 50/50 online-offline split within three years.

#11. SWOT Analysis

	Details
Strengths	First mover in coffee concentrate; shelf-stable flash-brew technology and an owned supply chain; brand equity from the Shi Duanzheng mascot and 600+ collaborations; radical value pricing; about 2 million followers
Weaknesses	Heavy reliance on online; low technical barriers in the category; several sub-brand misfires; limited scale compared with chains; no financial transparency
Opportunities	Continued growth in at-home coffee in China; demand for iced and milk coffee; offline convenience-store and warehouse-club channels; Yunnan coffee and the "guochao" (Chinese-heritage) trend; new categories such as tea concentrates
Threats	The café coffee price war; chains moving into retail coffee; rising traffic costs; volatile green-coffee prices

#12. Conclusion

Among China's new-consumer coffee brands, Yongpu has the strongest creative-design DNA:

It pioneered shelf-stable coffee concentrate. Flash-brew technology removed the need to refrigerate cold brew, made "coffee in your pocket" possible, and made milk and iced coffee easy at home.
It turned coffee into creative goods. The founder's design background shaped the Shi Duanzheng mascot, the "Yongpu Island" brand world and 600+ collaborations, creating distinctive emotional value.
It chose value in the price war. It cut single-stick prices to RMB 3–4 and relies on its own supply chain to hold costs.

Compared with Saturnbird, the two brands show two different paths in specialty instant:

	Saturnbird	Yongpu
Pricing	Defends a "quality band"; no price cuts	Radical value; proactive price cuts
Brand story	Specialty coffee, sustainability, a "worldview"	Chinese culture, creative goods, emotional value
Next step	Brand 2.0: flavour retail, physical spaces, circular living	A 50/50 online-offline split and deeper reach into lower-tier markets

Yongpu's next test is whether it can protect quality and margins in a low-price market and make its offline channels work, growing from an online collaboration sensation into a sustainable national coffee brand.

#Sources

Note: Yongpu is private. Sales figures come from founder interviews and media reports; 2019–2021 figures are mostly e-commerce sales, and the 2023 figure is a company forecast. No reliable public data was found from 2024 onward. Most sources date the Series A+ to 2021, though some report June 2022. Information such as the Blue Mountain estate comes from public reports and has not been independently verified. The three charts are illustrations based on public data, using colours taken from Yongpu's official store visuals.