Fall's onset has sparked an online hashtag — "the first cup of milk tea in autumn" — across the country, turning a seasonal drink into a national ritual.

Every year, at the Chinese solar term Start of Autumn, millions of consumers log on, or line up, for a plastic cup of comfort. This hashtag is once again flooding trend lists: social feeds have overflowed with milk-tea selfies, delivery counters are backed up, and some outlets have logged order backlogs of more than 1,000 cups.

Delivery platforms have become the main battleground.

Meituan said more than 100 tea brands including Mixue, YH Tang and coffee brands including Starbucks and Luckin Coffee, rolled out exclusive products on its platform on this year's Start of Autumn day, which fell on Aug 7, while at least 250,000 beverage outlets joined in the promotions.

For Generation Z consumers, the ritual has become less about tea and more about emotion. Ordering a cup is a form of social currency, a way to show affection or simply indulge in an instant, low-cost reward.

"China's new-style milk tea is entering a highlight moment," said Zhu Danpeng, an independent food-and-beverage analyst. Zhu compared the drink to a psychological nudge: a symbol of harvest and abundance that delivers "mood value" alongside caffeine and sugar.

The generational divide is stark.

Post-1990s consumers often buy to "please themselves", while older cohorts lean toward gifts that "please others". As Gen-Z edges into the mainstream, self-reward is becoming not only acceptable, but also visible — documented on feeds and shared in groups.

The appetite for emotionally charged purchases is spreading beyond tea and coffee beverages. From hanfu (traditional Chinese dress) to national-chic apparel, cultural creative goods and IP crossovers, "emotion-plus" is reshaping consumption patterns.

On Dewu App, a trading platform popular with Gen-Z, two drivers dominate: upgrading for quality and aligning with personal values. Toy sales on Dewu surged 310 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2025; blind-box sales rocketed 1,000 percent; and sales of stress-relief toys rose 900 percent.

Nostalgia products such as Phoenix Bicycle's road bike model, launched exclusively on the platform, sold nine times more year-on-year, with 65 percent of new buyers born after 1995.

Research firm iiMedia expects China's animation derivative products market to hit 652 billion yuan ($91.7 billion) in 2025 and 834 billion yuan by 2029. More than 55,000 companies linked to the "emotion economy" have registered in the past five years, including 7,500 in the first half alone, up 16.6 percent from a year earlier.

E-commerce events reflect the shift.

During Tmall's 2025 "618" shopping festival, 453 brands surpassed 100 million yuan in sales. Toys, pets and outdoor sports were breakout categories: six toy merchants cleared 100 million yuan, nearly 100 topped 10 million yuan, and 2,400 shops tripled their sales compared with the previous year.

Future Marketing projects that China's "emotion-consumption "market will surpass 2 trillion yuan in 2025, compounding at 12 percent annually since 2013.