Why Might Luckin Want To Buy Blue Bottle Coffee?

The tail end of 2025 has been full of notable corporate coffee mergers and acquisition stories. In September, Keurig Dr Pepper announced it was buying fellow conglomerate JDE Peet’s in an $18 billion move to create the world’s second-largest coffee company. The next month, Coca-Cola put Costa Coffee up for sale just five years after purchasing the U.K.-based chain. Then, in December, news broke that Nestlé was considering selling Blue Bottle Coffee.

Although no buyer was mentioned in the original story from Reuters (details in general were pretty thin), a few weeks later Bloomberg reported that the fast-growing Chinese chain Luckin was interested in purchasing Blue Bottle.

What all these recent stories have in common—aside from the huge numbers involved—is that the original acquisitions never quite worked out. The purchased brands struggled to varying degrees after being acquired, and the sales are rumoured to be at a loss. In Keurig's case, the JDE Peet's news caused its share price to plummet "due to investor anxiety".

So why might Luckin and its backer, the private equity firm Centurium Capital, might want to buy Blue Bottle? Bloomberg gave a glimmer of insight: The purported move could help Luckin “boost its brand profile and expand in the premium coffee segment”, Dong Cao and Ruth David wrote.

It’s all speculation at this point—no one involved would comment—but it seems like a strange fit. As Zac Cadwalader noted for Sprudge, Luckin’s business model is convenience- and speed-orientated, while Blue Bottle is “one of the original leaders in the clubhouse for slow coffee”. Luckin’s growth has been built on cheap, small-footprint locations, while Blue Bottle is famous for its expensive, architecture-focused interiors.

So what’s the appeal? Is this anything more than diversification on Luckin’s part? And, if it does go through, will this opposites-attract courtship prove more successful than the others?