How has the "unconventional" Nowwa Coffee become a dark horse with 10,000 stores?

Chinese coffee users have a clear understanding of mainstream coffee brands: Starbucks represents quality and is the top choice for the "third - space"; Luckin is an affordable alternative to Starbucks; Cotti is the pioneer of "affordable coffee", reshaping China's coffee price system with 9.9 - yuan coffee; and Xingyun Coffee is known for its low prices.

What are the prominent labels of the newly - emerged "dark horse" with ten thousand stores, Nowwa Coffee? It's hard to give a standard answer.

In 2025, through the "parasitic convenience - store model", Nowwa Coffee became another Chinese coffee chain brand with ten thousand stores, following Luckin, Cotti, and Xingyun Coffee.

However, there is a huge value gap between its "ten - thousand - store" scale and those of the leading peers. In the future, as the Chinese coffee market shifts from scale competition to refined operation, the "light" nature of Nowwa Coffee will also become its biggest shortcoming.

On a Rapid Expansion to Ten Thousand Stores

In 2025, Chinese coffee chain brands witnessed a second wave of store - opening. Previously inconspicuous in the industry, Nowwa Coffee made rapid progress this year and became the fourth Chinese coffee chain brand with over ten thousand stores, following Luckin, Cotti, and Xingyun Coffee.

Nowwa Coffee was founded in 2019, three years earlier than Cotti. But for a long time, in the Chinese coffee narrative dominated by Starbucks, Luckin, and Cotti, Nowwa had little room to shine.

Public data shows that by the end of 2024, the fifth year since its establishment, Nowwa had over 1,000 stores, initially establishing itself in the coffee chain industry.

In 2025, Nowwa Coffee's expansion suddenly accelerated. In January of that year, the number of stores exceeded 2,000; in July, it increased to over 3,000; and on December 11th, it officially announced that the number of stores had exceeded 10,000.

What contributed to the "Nowwa speed"?

Different from Luckin and Cotti, which open independent stores through franchisees, the vast majority of Nowwa Coffee's ten - thousand stores are not independent. They are just coffee - making and selling points with a Nowwa sign in convenience stores. Therefore, Nowwa Coffee's "ten - thousand stores" should more accurately be called "ten - thousand points".

This cooperation model allows convenience stores to add freshly - brewed coffee to their offerings without much additional investment, bringing in extra revenue and profit, and attracting more customers to the store.

The threshold for convenience stores to join Nowwa Coffee is extremely low. With a 10,000 - yuan equipment deposit and a few thousand yuan for the first batch of supplies, and by setting up a 2 - 4 square - meter bar in the cashier area, a "mini coffee shop" can start operating. Moreover, there is no need to hire full - time employees. Store clerks can start working after a short training. Compared with the hundreds of thousands of yuan required to open an independent coffee shop, this model reduces the decision - making and trial - and - error costs for convenience - store operators.

This asset - light expansion model has won the favor of capital. Recently, Nowwa Coffee completed hundreds of millions of yuan in Series C financing, jointly invested by many well - known institutions such as Legend Capital, Shengwang Fund, Huaying Capital, Challenger Venture Capital, Yuanxing Capital, and GSR Ventures.

Weak Brand Power

Mr. Wang is a heavy coffee user. He first learned about Nowwa Coffee through a food - delivery platform.

He searched on the food - delivery platform and found a Nowwa Coffee near his company. The price was also very affordable when picking up the order through the platform, so he placed an order.

But when he went to pick up the coffee according to the store's address, he walked around the area several times but couldn't find the Nowwa Coffee. Finally, by chance, he entered a convenience store and saw the Nowwa sign at the cashier: In the corner of the cashier area, there were coffee - making equipment. Alongside the coffee area, there were also roasted sweet potatoes, oden, etc.

That day, the packing bag the clerk gave him was actually a plastic bag from the convenience store, and the coffee straw was shared with other yogurt brands. These strange details made Mr. Wang's first experience of buying Nowwa Coffee very unpleasant.

The "parasitic store" model has enabled Nowwa Coffee to stand out in terms of store scale, but its brand power is far weaker than that of other peers in the ten - thousand - store club. Most customers go to convenience stores to buy coffee not because of the Nowwa brand, but simply to buy a caffeinated drink nearby.

Nowwa Coffee promotes itself with the differentiated selling point of "low - sugar, low - fat, and healthy", and focuses on promoting its super fruit and vegetable coffee as its flagship product.

However, in its current mainstream convenience - store model, there are no dedicated baristas. Convenience - store clerks have to handle cashier duties, roast sweet potatoes, and cook sausages, which means they can't devote much energy to making a single cup of coffee. As a result, the quality of the coffee may be difficult to guarantee.

As the Chinese coffee chain industry enters the "ten - thousand - store era", scale expansion is no longer the focus. Refined operation and creating popular products will become the core competitiveness of brands.

Luckin, Cotti, etc., can quickly promote a new product through their independent stores, large membership systems, and stable product quality. But as an appendage of convenience stores, Nowwa Coffee doesn't have the same market influence.

According to a report by Southern Metropolis Daily, before September 2025, Nowwa Coffee settled with convenience - store franchisees at 9.9 yuan per cup of coffee. After deducting costs, franchisees could make a profit of four or five yuan per cup. Later, the settlement policy was adjusted, and the profit per cup of coffee for convenience - store franchisees dropped to 2 yuan. After deducting utility bills and food losses, there was little left, greatly reducing the attractiveness to franchisees.

The Unconventional Nowwa

Guo Xingjun, the founder of Nowwa Coffee, worked at Ele.me for five years, holding positions such as the person in charge of catering business operation and management, commercialization and business advertising, and the COO of the new - retail shelf business "Ele.me Now". Therefore, most of the core founding team of Nowwa Coffee comes from Ele.me.

In 2019, in a small street - side restaurant, Guo Xingjun proposed to three long - time friends at the same table to start a coffee business together, and they readily agreed.

The choice of the coffee business mainly stemmed from Guo Xingjun's observation of food - delivery market categories during his time at Ele.me.

He noticed that in those years, the order volume of coffee on food - delivery platforms almost doubled every year. At that time, there was still a significant gap between China's per - capita coffee consumption and that of foreign countries, indicating huge growth potential. Additionally, in the food and beverage industry, coffee has a high degree of standardization, making it easier to replicate quickly.

At that time, Luckin Coffee had been listed on the NASDAQ, creating a "coffee myth" in China in just 18 months, which further strengthened their confidence in starting a business in the coffee industry.

Facing Luckin's strong market offensive, at the beginning of its establishment, Nowwa Coffee chose a differentiated store - opening strategy, expanding through the asset - light "store - within - a - store" model. It searched for offline physical stores such as Western restaurants and bars, renovated the storefronts, added Nowwa Coffee bars, provided machines, supplies, and the supply chain, and trained the clerks to meet the demand for take - out or on - the - go coffee.

In 2022, Nowwa Coffee began to expand independent stores nationwide, opened franchise opportunities, and slowed down the "store - within - a - store" model.

However, in front of Luckin and Cotti, Nowwa Coffee was not very attractive to franchisees. The continuous price wars launched by the two giants made it even more difficult for Nowwa to survive.

At the end of 2024, Nowwa Coffee restarted its "old business" of the convenience - store parasitic model and finally achieved a breakthrough with ten thousand stores through this unconventional model.

It should be noted that in the post - ten - thousand - store era, for Nowwa Coffee, which has achieved scale through an asset - light approach, how to build brand awareness among users will be a more challenging task.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Banma Consumption" (ID: banmaxiaofei), author: Xu Ji. It is published by 36Kr with permission.