The northeastern Chinese specialty "Korean Iced Milk" is expanding its store footprint at a frantic pace, and some people have begun to steer clear of the associated risks.

"Korean iced milk" is everywhere on the streets, but Koreans have never heard of it

This summer, the most puzzling hit product in the tea drink industry is none other than "Korean iced milk".

It emerged abruptly and expanded even faster.

Open the food delivery platform and search for "Korean iced milk", brands including Mumu, WUYOO, ohmo! pop up one after another; then open the review platform, in big cities like Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Beijing, there are countless newly settled Korean iced milk brands.

This drink itself is actually not complicated. To put it bluntly, it is just ice mixed with fresh milk, with a little fruit added according to the taste. There is no thick milk foam, no taro balls, tapioca pearls, crispy popping boba, nor complex layers. Most of them are priced between 15 and 25 yuan per cup.

However, with macaron-colored product pictures and keywords such as "same style as in Korean dramas", the ordinary iced milk has instantly gained new consumption scenarios: good-looking, refreshing, suitable for taking photos, and full of youthful vibe.

Interestingly, these iced milk products bearing the "Korean" brand are actually non-existent in South Korea. The two most typical expanding brands, "WUYOO" comes from Shenyang and "ohmo!" comes from Liaoyang, both are made in Northeast China.

The so-called boom is more like a new gameplay that spontaneously emerged in China's tea drink market.

At the end of June 2026, WUYOO had more than 160 stores nationwide, and began to expand to markets such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Hebei, Henan and Shanxi. In May this year, the brand opened 4 stores at once in Qingdao, and the CBD store achieved a turnover of more than 420,000 yuan in the first month of opening.

The official mini-program of ohmo! shows that there are more than 80 stores across the country, covering Shenzhen, Beijing, Hangzhou and other places. In mid-June, the brand announced the grand opening of 12 stores nationwide, and it is expected to open another 30 stores in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai in the third quarter.

The average daily turnover of ohmo! Ningbo Black Gold Store is about 20,000 yuan.

More players soon appeared in the market. LULUYOO, Mumou, kacha, MOMO, Xiaosi, SoSo, Ouni Youyou... The names are getting more and more, and the stores are getting denser and denser.

Even big brands can't sit still and have entered the iced milk track one after another. Binglewang's "Summer Black Grape Iced Milk" and "Mint Lemon Iced Milk" sold 280,000 cups in 3 days; the Tea Waterfall Iced Milk series under Hushang Auntie has steadily ranked top 3 in the brand's sales, accounting for more than 20% of total sales; Cha Baidao's Lychee Iced Milk sold 700,000 cups on the first day of its return, and sold more than 17 million cups in total in 51 days...

Multiple leading brands have opened more than 100 stores. What kind of track is iced milk exactly?

In the tea drink market that has been extremely competitive, why are consumers suddenly interested in such a product?

In the past few years, the milk tea industry has been moving in the direction of "adding more elements". In one cup of drink, there are more and more milk foam, toppings, tapioca pearls, taro balls, coconut jelly and crispy popping boba, and the taste is getting more and more complex. In the past, people drank a cup of milk tea, but now they want to put more than a dozen ingredients in one cup. It tastes good, but it is easy to have a "sense of burden" after drinking.

At this time, iced milk instead "subtracts elements". Ice, fresh milk, plus a little fruit, the formula is so simple that there is almost nothing to hide. It does not create a sense of satisfaction by relying on rich toppings, nor does it create memory points by relying on complex flavors, but turns "refreshing" itself into a selling point.

This exactly meets the increasingly obvious "low-burden" demand of current young consumers.

More importantly, it naturally has a layer of "health perception". The combination of fresh milk, fresh fruit and ice makes people more likely to associate with freshness, naturalness and low burden. As for how healthy it is, that's another matter, but in consumption decision-making, "looking healthy" itself is a kind of product value.

At the same time, the word "Korean" itself is a traffic password. Korean dramas and K-pop have long influenced the aesthetics of domestic young groups. Coupled with the high-saturation but not heavy macaron colors of iced milk such as pink, light green and light yellow, as well as the simple cup shape, piled up shaved ice and Korean-style store atmosphere, iced milk is very suitable for spreading on social platforms.

Some consumers have started to avoid it, how long can Korean iced milk stay popular?

Iced milk seems very hot now, but what the tea drink industry has the most is categories that "suddenly become a hit".

Every time a new category comes out, it will quickly attract a number of brands to follow up, with stores gathering, products spreading, and social platforms being swiped, which looks like a new trend. But after the heat fades, there are often few brands that can really stay.

Iced milk may not be able to avoid this rule.

First of all, the threshold of this business is not high.

Ice + fresh milk + fruit is not a very complex technology in itself. The supply chain is mature, the product is easy to replicate, and the store model is not heavy. For a large number of regional tea drink brands, as long as they slightly adjust the product formula and store visual design, they can quickly follow up. Everyone can do it, which means it is difficult to form a real difference.

In this case, small brands are difficult to compete head-on with leading tea drink brands. Leading brands have stronger supply chains, larger store networks, more mature membership systems and lower traffic acquisition capabilities. Once they launch iced milk as a seasonal product, the sense of novelty that small brands originally relied on is likely to be quickly diluted.

What's more troublesome is that the label of "Korean" itself is a double-edged sword.

At the beginning, it can help iced milk quickly build awareness and attract customers to try through "Korean style". But the so-called "Korean iced milk" is more of a marketing label. Once consumers realize this, the original sense of novelty may turn into doubts about the brand.

At the same time, the problems of the product itself have begun to emerge.

Some consumers reported that some stores do not use real fresh fruits, and some consumers complained that the product has too strong artificial flavor, or they are prone to diarrhea after drinking. The fruit is not fresh, the quality of fresh milk is unstable, or the artificial flavor is too strong. In addition, some rapidly expanded stores are small in size, simple in decoration, and low in back kitchen visibility. Once consumers get the impression of "small workshop" or "not hygienic", the sense of refreshment and health built before will be greatly reduced immediately.

Finally, before the Korean iced milk category has gained a firm foothold, fast franchising projects have already emerged first.

More and more investment promotion brands under the banner of "Korean iced milk" have begun to appear in the market. Some brands have not even formed many stores, but they have already carried out vigorous investment promotion and franchising. On social platforms, there are familiar slogans such as "how many cups a single store sells per day" and "pay back the cost in a few days of opening". What's more troublesome is that with the emergence of leading brands, counterfeit products have also begun to appear. From brand names, LOGOs, to storefront designs and product names, all may be quickly copied by latecomers.

This is actually a common phenomenon in the early stage of internet-famous categories: before the hit product has time to build barriers, imitators have already lined up to enter the market.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Restaurant Boss Internal Reference", author: Neicanjun, published with authorization from 36Kr.