Nasdaq Listing Coincides With Korea Debut; Heytea, ChaPanda, Auntea Jenny Already on the Ground

Chinese premium milk tea brand Chagee (覇王茶姬) is set to open its first Korean outlet in Gangnam, Seoul, by Q2 2026.

The company plans to follow with additional locations at Yongsan I’Park Mall and Sinchon within the second quarter, bringing its Seoul footprint to three stores opened in quick succession. Korea marks Chagee’s first entry into East Asia outside of China.

The Seoul launch coincides with a major capital markets move. On April 11, Chagee officially initiated its U.S. initial public offering (IPO) process, targeting proceeds of more than USD 400 million. Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, CICC, and Deutsche Bank are listed as joint bookrunners. The ticker symbol has been confirmed as “CHA.”

The company’s financial profile has drawn attention from investors. As of end-2024, Chagee operated 6,440 stores worldwide and posted annual revenue of 12.4 billion yuan (approximately USD 1.7 billion). Its net profit margin stood at 20.3% — meaning the brand nets roughly four yuan in profit on every twenty-yuan cup sold.

Product strategy is equally distinctive. Chagee maintains a deliberately narrow menu of 20 to 30 SKUs. Its signature drink, Boya Juexian (伯牙絶弦), has sold over 600 million cups cumulatively and accounts for the bulk of total revenue.

■ The “Jang Wonyoung Effect” That Sparked Korean Demand

Chagee’s rise to prominence in Korea began with an unexpected moment.

Earlier this year, IVE member Jang Wonyoung was filmed ordering four cups of Chagee at her hotel following a fan signing event in Guangzhou. A clip of her reacting to the drink Qingqing Nuoshan (青青糯山) — pausing, then lighting up and exclaiming “What is this?” — spread rapidly across platforms in both Korea and China. The so-called “Jang Wonyoung milk tea” effect drove a more than 300% spike in Chagee-related search volume in Korea. Some fans began placing proxy-purchase orders from Shanghai; others flew to China specifically to visit a store.

According to Google Trends data, Korea-based searches related to Chagee rose 110% over the past three months.

Ahead of the official opening, Chagee unveiled a large-scale installation at its Gangnam flagship — arched greenery against the exterior wall alongside an oversized signature cup. A QR-linked 50% discount coupon promotion is also underway, establishing customer touchpoints before the doors open.

■ A Mixed Record for Early Entrants: “Korea Is No Easy Market”

Chagee’s meticulous pre-launch strategy reflects lessons drawn from brands that came before it.

Chinese budget coffee chain Cotti replicated its domestic low-price playbook in Korea, only to shut all local stores within less than a year due to insufficient product differentiation. Heytea broke into the market on the back of fresh-fruit teas but found itself squeezed by Korea’s high fruit costs. Mixue, despite its aggressive pricing, has struggled to penetrate the mainstream Korean consumer base and remains concentrated around Korean-Chinese and overseas Chinese communities.

ChaPanda (茶百道), by contrast, has maintained a relatively steady expansion since entering Korea in 2024, accumulating around 20 stores. Shanghai-based Auntea Jenny has opened its first Korean outlet in the Konkuk University area and begun recruiting franchisees.

■ The Strategy: Repositioning Over Direct Competition

The core of Chagee’s approach is redefinition, not confrontation.

Rather than competing on cost in the fresh-fruit tea segment, the brand has positioned itself as an “Eastern tea latte” — a coffee alternative that delivers caffeine comparable to a cup of coffee while offering the flavor profile of milk tea.

The positioning maps directly onto Korean consumption habits. Korean adults consume an average of 353 cups of coffee per year, roughly three times the global average. As of 2021, the country had 23,204 coffee shops — one for every 2,230 people.

Chagee’s marketing sequencing also sets it apart. While most brands follow a “store first, marketing second” approach, Chagee launched its Korean Instagram account roughly a year before opening day. Rather than promoting products, the account consistently published content around Yunnan tea mountains, Chinese traditional aesthetics, and brand heritage. The company also hired Kim Junghee, a CMO with multinational marketing experience at CJ CheilJedang, McDonald’s, Unilever, and Casetify, to embed local sensibility into its strategy.

Store location selection reflects the same deliberateness. By targeting Gangnam (high-income consumers), Yongsan I’Park Mall (entertainment-driven foot traffic), and Sinchon (university-age youth) simultaneously, Chagee has designed a configuration that covers three high-impact consumer segments in a single move.

■ A Growing Tea Market — But Structural Hurdles Remain

Korea’s tea beverage market is on an upward trajectory. According to Euromonitor, the domestic tea market expanded from approximately USD 800 million in 2020 to USD 1.1 billion in 2024, a 44% increase over four years. As the coffee market hardens into a red ocean, tea is seen as retaining room for growth.

Expanding familiarity with China is also generating demand. Following China’s visa exemption policy expansion, a growing number of Korean tourists have been exposed to Chinese-style tea beverages incorporating fresh fruit and dairy during trips to the mainland.

Structural challenges, however, are equally real. The price gap is stark. A standard low-price iced Americano in Korea typically runs between USD 1.00 and 2.00. Chagee’s expected price range in Korea is USD 4.30 to 6.50 — a mid-to-premium positioning that cuts against the prevailing perception of Chinese beverage brands as affordable options.

Korea’s tendency toward fast-burning trends is another risk factor. The black sugar bubble tea craze, which once generated lines stretching over an hour in Seoul, cooled within months. Even market leader Gong Cha has not been immune. The brand’s Korean revenue fell from USD 93 million in 2022 to USD 87 million in 2024, while operating profit collapsed from USD 11 million to USD 1.5 million — an 86% decline — over the same period.

■ An Inflection Point After Rapid Growth — Internal Restructuring Underway

Chagee’s Korea push comes at a moment of significant internal transition.

Revenue growth that ran at 843% in 2023 and 167% in 2024 slowed sharply in 2025. Full-year net revenue reached 12.91 billion yuan, up just 4% year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders fell to 1.135 billion yuan, a decline of more than 52%.

As rival brands engaged in aggressive price wars on third-party delivery platforms — some offering drinks at one yuan or even zero — Chagee held its pricing, citing brand integrity. The result was a loss of offline foot traffic. In the fourth quarter of 2025, average monthly GMV per store in Greater China dropped 25.5% year-on-year to 337,000 yuan.

Founder and CEO Zhang Junjie addressed the results with a tone of candid self-criticism on the earnings call. “We underestimated the complexity and time sensitivity of organizational restructuring at this scale,” he said. “2025 was essentially half a year lost.”

In response, Chagee overhauled its franchise model beginning January 2026. The previous approach — earning margin on raw material sales to franchisees — was replaced by a revenue-sharing model under which a fixed percentage of each store’s GMV is split between the company and the franchisee. Chagee now subsidizes discount costs up to 10% of turnover, and has cut franchisee procurement costs by 20% to 40%. Zhang described the shift as moving “from supplier to partner.”

Korea’s role in this context is clear. At a time when domestic momentum is under pressure, Chagee is making an active bet on international markets to secure its next growth engine.

■ Will Seoul Become the East Asian Test Bed for Chinese New-Style Tea?

Chagee’s arrival adds fresh momentum to an ongoing shift. Heytea, ChaPanda, Mixue, and Auntea Jenny are already competing for a share of the Korean market. Together, the wave of Chinese new-style tea brands is introducing a new competitive variable into Korea’s beverage landscape.

Korea is widely regarded among brand strategists as a demanding market with high consumer expectations and acute sensitivity to trends — making it a natural test bed for brands preparing to scale globally. If Chagee succeeds in embedding its brand narrative into everyday consumption patterns here, it could serve as a meaningful signal of how far Chinese tea culture can travel.

In the first half of 2026, Seoul has become the East Asian proving ground for China’s new-style tea industry.

By Eden Hyewon Jang, BCC Global Media Content Manager