Lelecha put Lu Xun's face on a milk tea as a 'homage.' The court called it infringement.

On World Book Day, 23 April 2024, the Chinese tea chain Lelecha teamed up with Yilin Publishing House to launch a limited drink called "烟腔乌龙" — an oolong marketed as a homage to Lu Xun, the modern writer China reveres as its sharpest critic. The cup carried a portrait of Lu Xun holding a milk tea, and the campaign leaned hard on the writer's image and a slogan playing on his persona. It was meant to be clever cultural marketing.

The problem was what the portrait was borrowed from. The campaign made heavy use of two artworks — "永远进击" and a half-body portrait of Lu Xun — created by the artists Yang Zhiguang and Ou Yang. Lelecha had not cleared the rights to them. Within days the tribute was recast as theft: commentary asked how cultural marketing could treat a national figure's likeness as free to take, and on 27 April the brand pulled the campaign materials, apologising two days later for infringing Lu Xun's portrait rights.

The apology did not end it. The rights holders sued, and the Shanghai Putuo District People's Court found that Lelecha had infringed the copyright of the Lu Xun artworks. It was ordered to pay 200,000 yuan in damages and costs, and to publish a statement on its official WeChat account eliminating the impact. On 13 March 2026, nearly two years after the launch, Lelecha posted the court-ordered apology, conceding that its "copyright awareness had been seriously insufficient."

The case became a cautionary tale in China's booming co-branding culture, where tea and coffee chains chase viral collaborations with museums, writers and celebrities. The lesson the courts drew was that a homage is not a defence: borrowing a cultural figure's image without clearing the underlying rights is infringement, however reverent the intent. Lelecha had wanted Lu Xun's cultural weight; it got his lawyers instead.