The 7th Anniversary: CHAGEE Overcoming Challenges and Evolving

On November 17, CHAGEE marked the seventh anniversary of its brand establishment.

Initially, it was not particularly prominent. Its first global store is located near Exit A of Wuyi Road Metro Station in Kunming. Wuyi Road is adjacent to Shuncheng Street, which was an important post station on the Ancient Tea Horse Road during the Ming and Qing dynasties and the first commercial street in old Kunming.

The year 2021 was a crucial turning point for CHAGEE: In June, it moved its headquarters to Chengdu, known as the "Capital of Milk Tea in Western China", and simultaneously initiated the brand's 2.0 upgrade. Three months later, it opened the world's first flagship store with a new brand image in Chunxi Road, Chengdu. In October, it announced two rounds of financing totaling 300 million yuan, beginning to attract the attention of mainstream business media.

In 2023, CHAGEE became a phenomenal new tea drink brand. According to Frost & Sullivan, among China's freshly made tea drink brands in 2023, CHAGEE ranked fourth with 10.8 billion yuan. At this time, the number of CHAGEE stores is less than half of the top few.

The elimination race in the new tea drink industry is accelerating, and CHAGEE continues to strive forward. In the first quarter of this year, CHAGEE's GMV exceeded 5.8 billion yuan, and its GMV target for 2024 is 20 billion yuan. As of May 20 this year, the number of registered members of CHAGEE has exceeded 130 million, achieving a doubling of the registered member count in less than half a year. In July, CHAGEE launched its global headquarters in Shanghai, operating with dual headquarters, undoubtedly revealing its ambition to become a global tea drink brand.

On its journey, CHAGEE makes friends with users with "Oriental Tea" and also attracts many brand friends, helping each other create real value. For example: In June this year, Xiaoguancha announced that CHAGEE became the first recipient of its patent open source, and the two sides want to explore a new cross-track cooperation model between traditional loose-leaf tea and new Chinese-style tea drinks; At the end of August, Haidilao announced that Zhang Junjie, the founder of CHAGEE, would serve as an independent non-executive director. It recognizes Zhang Junjie's product innovation and brand operation capabilities, and this collision between the old and new in the catering industry has aroused widespread discussion.

The past seven years are not only the growth history of a tea drink brand but also an important period for the renewal and development of China's tea industry and the continuous enhancement of the influence of Oriental tea culture on a global scale. Only by being itself and telling the story of Oriental Tea well can CHAGEE go further.

1. Transmitting Oriental Tea Culture with a Broader Perspective

First, it occupied the category mentality of "Fresh Milk Tea with Loose Leaves" in China, and then promoted Oriental tea culture overseas. CHAGEE dares to launch higher challenges to itself, and its confidence comes from long-term brand building. Today, a large part of consumers' sense of gain from a cup of milk tea comes from the spiritual proposition or emotional value conveyed by the brand.

Discovering the tea story behind the product is the first step for new tea drink brands to establish an emotional connection with users.

In August 2022, CHAGEE launched the annual heavyweight new product "To Yunnan · Rose Pu'er". The new product TVC is full of a sense of sophistication. The video highlights the status of Yunnan as the hometown of tea through five core images: patterns (Dongba characters, an ancient hieroglyphic language used by the Naxi people in the Yunnan-Sichuan region and the only living hieroglyphic language in the world), paintings (the Ancient Tea Horse Road), sounds (the bells of the caravan), decorations (ethnic costumes), and drinks (one flower and one leaf, referring to six-year-old aged Pu'er and Yunnan ink-red roses).

In June this year, CHAGEE's classic single product "Wild Gardenia" returned, and its new product short film mentioned "The nature of tea is formless; Everything is spiritual and interdependent", aiming to convey the concept of the symbiosis of tea and people, and tea and nature.

At the same time, CHAGEE cooperated with the Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest Conservation Foundation to launch the "CHAGEE Symbiosis with Nature · Asian Elephant Rescue Action". In the areas suitable for Asian elephants to inhabit in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, the "CHAGEE Elephant Canteen" was established to plant plants that Asian elephants like to eat, such as elephant grass, plantain, and Broussonetia papyrifera, to increase the number of food sources for Asian elephants in the wild. Nourished by Yunnan, CHAGEE naturally wants to become the protector of the ecological source of Yunnan tea.

In September, CHAGEE launched a new product "Golden Crow Soaring". It not only collaborated with Li Mingze, the ninth-generation intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Pu'er Gongcha production skills, to launch the documentary "Where Does Tea Come From" to trace the origin of Pu'er tea culture, but also invited the high-quality cultural content creator Yi Gongzi to interpret the naming of Chinese tea. CHAGEE is using "slow content" to guide users to taste tea culture with a peaceful mind.

With tea as the medium, traditional culture is renewed in modern life. If launching the "Palace Museum · Tea World" tea culture special exhibition in collaboration with the Palace Museum, jointly releasing the theme photography blockbuster with the Wuyishan Municipal Museum, and paying tribute to the intangible cultural heritage skills of dragon boat making with the Fuzhou Dragon Boat are conventional actions, then CHAGEE also uses more creative ways to attract young people's attention to traditional culture.

For example, in July this year, CHAGEE collaborated with Guizhou Radio and Television Station to shoot the micro-drama "Xu Xiake's Anshun Adventure", telling the story of the encounter between the Ming Dynasty traveler Xu Xiake and CHAGEE's top-selling single product "Boya Juexian" in Anshun in a down-to-earth form. And "Boya Juexian" is an allusion from ancient China, which contains the profound meaning of the difficulty of finding a bosom friend. At the end of the film, Xu Xiake stands on the top of the mountain and shouts: "To pacify the world and satisfy the people, the mountains and rivers are not the most important, but meeting a bosom friend is." Many netizens were moved by this plot.

Another example is that in October this year, CHAGEE became the exclusive tea drink partner of the 2024 Wuzhen Theatre Festival and appeared at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival with the new image of the CHAGEE Theatre Tea Shop. Some netizens believe that the integration of tea and drama, tea is like drama, with all kinds of tastes of life.

CHAGEE attempts to explore tea culture from the perspective of fashion aesthetics. In October this year, at the 2025 Shanghai Spring/Summer Fashion Week, CHAGEE and designer Angel Chen jointly launched the co-branded series theme "Praise of Fire". It draws inspiration from the red and blue colors of CHAGEE. Red is the fire that spreads like wildfire, and blue is the power of inheritance. The clothing presents a hot and psychedelic visual effect like sand painting through hand-sprayed ink. Back to CHAGEE's typical "C" logo, it has enamel style, embroidery style, etc., fully demonstrating Chinese aesthetics.

The inclusiveness of tea is also reflected in its ability to connect the world. In May this year, CHAGEE released the global brand promotional video "CHA", in which the images of consumers from multiple countries and ethnic groups drinking Oriental tea together are impressive. In June, CHAGEE was invited to enter the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and tell the history of tea culture to the participants at the Sino-French Brand Summit Forum. Looking at China from the world can enable tea drink brands to further open the expression space of tea culture with a peaceful mindset.

2. Continuously Strengthening the Brand Imprint of a "Professional" Tea Drink Brand

In the current market environment, consumers have become more rational, which forces consumer brands in various fields to show their "hard power". If transmitting tea culture is to endow milk tea with emotional value, then implementing the healthy tea drink strategy and using modern tea technology is to shape a professional brand image. CHAGEE takes the lead in occupying and continuously consolidating the mentality of a "professional" tea drink brand.

Zhang Junjie once said, "CHAGEE never creates demand, but rather perceives and meets the needs of the largest common denominator of people worldwide."

The "Big Data Research and Consumer Behavior Survey of China's New Tea Drinks" released by iiMedia Research in July last year shows that 49.4% of new tea drink consumers are worried about health issues, and 42.2% of consumers are more concerned about whether they will gain weight. The new tea drink market is growing steadily, and "unhealthiness" has become one of the most tangled factors for young people when consuming milk tea.

CHAGEE has taken the lead in promoting the three-zero addition of freshly made tea drinks in China, including 0 artificial flavors, 0 non-dairy creamer in milk, 0 trans-fatty acids in the entire cup, and the trial implementation of the "Nutrition Choice Label" and the "Low GI Label", becoming one of the few new tea drink brands that publicly display the calorie value and nutritional components of products.

After completing the first stage of the healthy upgrade - making product information transparent, CHAGEE quickly gathered seven world-class athletes to form the Health Ambassador Team in June this year, and simultaneously launched the offline series of activities "CHAGEE TOGETHER · Sports Together" and the interest community "Tea Friend Community CHAGEE CLUB", inviting consumers to participate in fun sports projects and integrating tea drinks into a broader healthy life.

Among the Health Ambassador Team, Zheng Qinwen received the most attention. The "Zheng Qinwen Storm" began with her winning the women's singles tennis championship at the Paris Olympics, but CHAGEE's partnership with Zheng Qinwen can be traced back to the Australian Open at the beginning of 2024, where Zheng Qinwen won the runner-up in the Grand Slam. Zheng Qinwen's strong and hardworking sports competitive spirit, vigorous and confident vitality, and CHAGEE's advocacy of a healthy and positive lifestyle and the goal of global development coincide.

Competitions are an excellent carrier for promoting a healthy life. CHAGEE became the exclusive partner of the 2024 China Open, which is also the first freshly made tea drink brand to partner with the China Open. In addition, it has also won titles such as the official designated tea drink of the Wuhan Open, the designated sponsor of the Shanghai Rolex Masters, and the official sponsor of the Ningbo Tennis Open.

Like lululemon, CHAGEE hopes to first acquire sports enthusiasts through holding offline activities and sponsoring events, and then this group of loyal users will radiate to the surrounding potential user groups. This community connection method can increase user sense of belonging and thereby enhance brand influence.

In addition to health, the production speed also affects the experience of a cup of Oriental tea. Since 2022, CHAGEE has successively launched automated tea-making equipment in stores, reducing the taste error rate to 2 per thousand and improving the average meal delivery efficiency to 8 seconds per cup, solving the operational management problems that the industry has criticized in the past, such as the difficulty of employee training, the long learning cycle, and the low production efficiency.

In September this year, CHAGEE launched a new Zhencui Tea series, including two major series of "Tea Chinese Style" and "Tea Latte" with a total of 7 products, which were put on the shelves and sold in about 16 pilot stores in Shanghai. After the tea grinder grinds the fresh loose-leaf tea, it is extracted with high temperature, high pressure and multi-stage single cup, which can stimulate the fresh aroma of the original leaves. It can also accurately adjust the concentration of each cup of tea extract, including two standards of strong extract and light extract.

Zhang Junjie said that a truly modern and global Oriental tea needs to be like coffee, so that everyone can drink a cup every day. In other words, to make such an Oriental tea, the tea needs to return to the tea itself, maintain a unified taste, improve the delivery efficiency, and adapt to the modern lifestyle like coffee. Efficiency and professionalism are important meanings of the brand.

3. Becoming a "Super Brand" to Grow Against the Cycle

The freshly made beverage itself does not have a very high "technical threshold", and the brand power composed of multiple dimensions is the key for the brand to cross the cycle. At present, who is the "super brand" in the tea drink industry?

As Ge Xiantong, the founder of Jingcai Capital, said, in the tea drink chain industry, without scale, talking about brand influence is a castle in the air. According to the latest data of CHAGEE's seventh anniversary, its global stores have exceeded 6,000. From the perspective of store scale, among the top ten domestic tea drink brands, CHAGEE is the one that was established the latest.

The big single product also reflects a unique brand image, and enterprises with big single products usually have stronger anti-risk capabilities when facing fierce competition. On August 23 this year, CHAGEE announced that the cumulative sales of "Boya Juexian" have exceeded 600 million cups, setting a new sales record for big single products in the tea drink industry.

Going global is to cultivate new growth points and also to temper the brand power at a higher dimension. During the National Day this year, CHAGEE opened its first store in Hong Kong, China, which has a strong international market influence. The store is located in the K11 high-end shopping center. In just two days of official business, the sales volume reached nearly 10,000 cups.

Earlier, CHAGEE has been making continuous efforts in the Southeast Asian market. On September 23, the first batch of CHAGEE's new flagship spaces in Malaysia officially opened. Since its entry into Malaysia in 2019, it has established a professional team in the local area, and the total number of stores has now exceeded 130. In August, it opened three new stores in Singapore at once. Among them, the Singapore Orchard store received over 10,000 visitors in just three days after its opening.

With the global consumption weakening and facing an increasingly complex market competition pattern, some enterprises are hesitant, while others dare to move forward boldly.

Pop Mart and MINISO are both representatives of Chinese physical retail enterprises going global. Pop Mart returned to a market value of over 100 billion Hong Kong dollars on October 23. Its founder Wang Ning said that respecting time and management is important. MINISO founder Ye Guofu won the current status of MINISO with "courage and boldness", and while laying out overseas, Ye Guofu himself also has a global perspective and judgment. For building a global brand, Zhang Junjie also has patience and determination.

Liu Xiaobin, CMO of MINISO, said that the future retail company must be a content company. CHAGEE is moving in this direction.

Back to the press conference in May this year, Zhang Junjie choked up several times. "I understand his ambition, and finally he has the opportunity to speak it out," a post-90s founder of an emerging consumer brand told 36Kr Future Consumption