Feng Zikai's Watermelons Are Now a Coffee Drink — And It Works

Lucky Cup Coffee (幸运咖) just did something smarter than your average summer collab: they went and put Feng Zikai's watermelons into a cup.

The Chinese coffee chain — best known as the budget-friendly sibling of Mixue, slinging lattes in the RMB 5–10 range — has teamed up with the estate of Feng Zikai (1898–1975), one of China's most beloved modern illustrators. The theme: "笔墨藏夏，种瓜得瓜" — roughly, "ink hides the summer, plant melons, get melons." The product: a watermelon series built around HPP cold-pressed juice, designed to evoke the taste of childhood summers.

The cup design pulls directly from Feng's paintings — those loose, brushstroke-light scenes of everyday Chinese life that generations grew up seeing in textbooks and family bookshelves. His "种瓜得瓜" (Plant Melons, Get Melons) series, which gives the collab its name, carries a gentle, almost Buddhist simplicity: you reap what you sow, rendered in the unbothered faces of children and the heavy stillness of summer afternoons.

That's the hook. Lucky Cup Coffee isn't just selling watermelon drinks. It's selling the memory of being seven years old, sitting on a sticky kitchen floor, spitting seeds into a bowl. The "质朴恬淡" (plain and tranquil) mood of Feng's work mapped onto a disposable coffee cup is a surprisingly elegant move for a chain that usually competes on price.

A pattern, not a one-off

This isn't Lucky Cup Coffee's first swing at cultural IP. They previously collabed with Qi Baishi's estate on a lychee series, and ran a Dunhuang-inspired "Eastern栀子香" (gardenia) line. The playbook is consistent: take a heavyweight of Chinese art and literary culture, match it with a seasonal product, and let the contrast — high art on a budget cup — do the heavy lifting.

There's a business logic here worth noting. China's coffee price war has been brutal. Brands have been racing to the bottom on price while margins shrink. Lucky Coffee's pivot toward "cultural narrative" as a differentiator is a bet that even at budget prices, a cup that
means
something will win counter space — and social feeds — over one that's merely cheap.

Why Feng Zikai, why now

Feng Zikai's appeal cuts across demographics in ways few Chinese artists manage. Millennials and Gen Z know him from childhood. Older generations revere him. His work is nostalgic without being saccharine, patriotic without being propaganda. For a brand trying to layer some warmth and depth onto a commodity product, he's a nearly perfect choice: instantly recognizable, emotionally loaded, and — crucially — cool again among young consumers rediscovering "national style" aesthetics.

Whether the watermelon drink actually tastes like childhood is, of course, a separate question. But the cup already did its job: you saw it, you remembered. And that's a lot to ask of something that costs less than a metro ticket.