On September 18th, a video went viral online showing an employee at a milk tea shop in Shenzhen, Guangdong province dipping their slippers into a box of tapioca pearls and using their bare hands to make milk tea.
The video showed the person casually taking off their slippers, dipping them into the box of tapioca pearls, then reaching their hands that had touched the slippers into the box to randomly grab some pearls, putting them into a cup of milk tea.
Furthermore, the person deliberately wiped their hands on the dirty work surface, picked up more tapioca pearls, and put them into the milk tea cup.
According to information provided by netizens in the comments section of the video, the person who uploaded the video had an IP address in Guangdong province and had 984 followers. Currently, their account has been set to private.
This blogger’s behavior, suspected to be a stunt for internet traffic, has sparked outrage online. Netizens expressed their dismay, saying, “People have no bottom line anymore,” “They will do anything for traffic,” “This kind of attitude will lead to wrongdoing everywhere,” “Last time, that kid from Hai Di Lao peed in the hotpot and had to pay over 2 million, this one should be fined 50,000,” “Harming others and oneself,” “This is just what has been exposed, there are many more things you don’t see.”
Some netizens discovered that the milk tea shop is located in Minzhi, Shenzhen, with a sign posting “Gong Cha.”
On September 18th, Red Star News contacted the implicated milk tea shop, and the store manager responded that the employee involved was on their first day at work and had only been working for 40 minutes when the incident occurred. The employee’s actions were discovered at the time, and they were taken away by the police for investigation on the same day. The milk tea ingredients featured in the video were all disposed of, and the shop has now been closed for rectification.
Several nearby residents and other shops confirmed that the store is currently closed.
Regarding this incident, “Gong Cha Headquarters” released a statement on September 18th through its official account, stating that the shop involved in the recent “Guangdong Slipper Tapioca Milk Tea” incident is not one of their franchise stores, and there are no franchisees in Guangdong province.
The statement emphasized that “Gong Cha” is a generic term and not a trademark. There are individual small shops that directly use the name “Gong Cha,” but “our company operates under the brand names ‘Eastern Gong Cha’ and ‘Ju Liao Gong Cha.'”