Coffee Marketed as Preventing Multiple Diseases: Dehong Heirou Coffee Company Penalized for Illegal Advertising

Brief (coffeeyo.com): A Yunnan coffee company, Dehong Heirou Coffee Co., Ltd., has been fined by market regulators after it claimed on its website and in its showroom that its coffee could “prevent myopia, gout, diabetes, gallstones, and Alzheimer’s disease”—violating China’s Advertising Law.

Heirou Coffee’s product series. (Source: official website of Dehong Heirou Coffee Co., Ltd.)

Xinwang · Xinhao News, August 12 — On August 7, Dehong Heirou Coffee Co., Ltd. was penalized by the Mangshi Market Supervision Administration of Yunnan Province for claiming that coffee has functions such as “preventing myopia, gout, diabetes, gallstones, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

According to the administrative penalty decision (No. Yun-Shi-Jian-De-Mang-Fa-Gao [2026] No. 69), on April 28, 2026, the Mangshi Market Supervision Administration received a public tip-off stating that Dehong Heirou Coffee Co., Ltd. had published promotional content involving disease-treatment functions on the homepage of its official website.

The inspection found that the company had published promotional slogans with identical content on both the homepage of its website and display boards in its exhibition hall, claiming that coffee is “rich in beneficial components for the human body such as caffeine, chlorogenic acid, and trigonelline,” and has effects including “relieving fatigue, refreshing the mind, beautifying the skin, reducing fat and shaping the body, delaying aging, soothing the stomach and aiding digestion, and promoting diuresis and detoxification,” explicitly listing that it can “prevent myopia, gout, diabetes, gallstones, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

The Mangshi Market Supervision Administration held that, as a coffee producer, the company’s advertising content violated Article 17 of the Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China, which states: “Except for advertisements of medical treatment, drugs, and medical devices, no other advertisement may involve disease-treatment functions, nor use medical terminology or language that may confuse the promoted product with drugs or medical devices.”

According to the investigation, the aforementioned website promotional content was designed, produced, and uploaded by Yunnan Chengbai Technology Co., Ltd. at a production cost of 220 yuan; the exhibition-hall display boards were produced by the Mangshi Xinhualian Advertising Studio at a cost of 293 yuan (after tax), for a total advertising production cost of 513 yuan.

Given that the company actively cooperated with the investigation after the incident, promptly rectified the published advertisements, and caused no serious consequences, it met the conditions for a mitigated penalty. The Mangshi Market Supervision Administration ordered the company to immediately correct its illegal acts and imposed a fine equal to one times the advertising production cost of 513 yuan, to be turned over to the state treasury.

Information from the Qichacha platform shows that Dehong Heirou Coffee Co., Ltd. was established on December 14, 2015, with Shan Yunhui as its legal representative. (Xinwang reporter)

Source: Xinwang (Xinhao News).

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