From Chagee to Heytea, China’s tea brands are brewing cultural clout

What happened These days, young Chinese consumers are entering tea shops for more than a drink. In September, Chagee teamed up with Clot, the streetwear label founded by Edison Chen, on a matcha-themed collaboration. The collection featured three drinks, a bespoke cup, and blind boxes containing two badges and a plush charm. Across mainland China, more than 200,000 “winning cups” were also released, giving customers the chance to win co-branded rugs and insulated tumblers. The collaboration transformed a routine tea purchase into an unboxing experience, with collectibles adding another incentive to buy. Li Jian, a university student in Nanjing, told Jing Daily that drinking milk tea has become part of everyday life for Chinese students. “It almost feels like a necessity. Life would be pretty boring without it. Treating classmates and professors to milk tea is also a great way to socialize.” Chagee is hardly the first to milk this appetite. From celebrities and film franchises to fashion and streetwear, tea chains are increasingly turning to cross-industry collaborations. Buying a drink now comes with the chance to own a collectible, join a cultural conversation, or express a personal interest. The shift comes amid intensifying competition in China’s new-style tea market. According to iiMedia Research, the market was estimated to reach RMB 374.93 billion ($52 billion) in 2025, up 5.7% year on year. With similar flavors, comparable prices, and an expanding range of choices, brands need new reasons to keep consumers coming back. Yet a buzzy collaboration does not necessarily translate into lasting brand appeal. When consumers visit a store for a celebrity or a limited-edition collectible, their interest may lie in the collaboration rather than the tea brand itself. The challenge now is turning that fleeting hype into lasting loyalty. The Jing Take: What are young consumers really buying? For years, Chinese tea brands have been using collaborations to borrow cultural cachet and attract new audiences, turning everyday drinks into accessible entry points to luxury and streetwear culture. In April 2022, Heytea partnered with Japanese streetwear designer Hiroshi Fujiwara and his design collective Fragment on a limited-edition collection. The collaboration brought Fragment’s signature black palette and lightning-bolt logo to drink cups, paper bags, and insulated carriers, alongside a special blackberry mulberry drink. For just RMB 19 ($3), streetwear enthusiasts could get their hands on something bearing Fujiwara’s iconic logo. Some social media users joked that their first piece of Hiroshi Fujiwara merchandise had come from Heytea. The collaboration quickly translated into sales. According to Heytea, more than 150,000 cups of Cool Black Berry were sold on its first day, with sales surpassing 1 million cups in less than two weeks. Limited-edition merchandise also sold out rapidly. For young streetwear fans, a cup bearing the Fragment logo or a collectible from the collaboration was reason enough to make a special trip. Symbols once associated with exclusive streetwear and designer goods had become accessible for the price of a milk tea. Heytea’s more recent collaboration with Blackpink member Lisa has drawn similar attention. In September, Lisa was spotted filming promotional content at Heytea’s CentralWorld store in Bangkok, fueling weeks of speculation on social media. On October 13, the partnership was officially unveiled, featuring not only limited-edition drinks but also collectible pins, keychains, and stickers. For fans, a cup of Heytea had become another way to engage with their favorite star. Tea brands are also turning a single purchase into a broader collecting experience. What began with cup sleeves and paper bags now extends to pins, display stands, plush charms, and fridge magnets, as well as mystery items, rare editions, and city exclusives. Increasingly, the merchandise has an appeal of its own, independent of the drink. Once the drink is finished, pins and charms can be attached to bags while cards can be tucked into collectible albums. Scarce items can be traded or resold on secondhand marketplaces. Even cup sleeves and paper bags can be cut, collaged, and repurposed. These objects give a fleeting purchase a longer emotional life and social meaning. From mass reach to lasting relevance China’s vast base of tea drinkers gives these collaborations a reach few other consumer touchpoints can match. Tea drinking is already a regular habit for many young Chinese consumers. A 2025 survey by iiMedia Research found that 69.76% of respondents who consumed new-style tea drinks bought them two to three times a week. That reach is underpinned by the sheer scale of China’s tea shop network. According to retail data provider Yilan Business, 30 major tea chains operated a combined 135,500 stores as of December 2025. Mixue alone had more than 44,000 stores in China, while Goodme operated over 13,000, ChaPanda more than 8,000, and Chagee over 7,000. Of course, the size of a store network does not reflect the reach of any individual collaboration. Still, this extensive footprint gives tea brands a significant advantage in reaching consumers across cities and demographics. However, the relentless pace of new collaborations is also eroding the novelty that once made them appealing. According to iiMedia Research, 61.1% of surveyed new-style tea consumers identified excessive brand collaborations as a major industry problem. As the novelty wears off, brands need a more compelling reason for each partnership. Even established players like Heytea are not immune to missteps. In 2021, the chain collaborated with cleaning brand Mr Muscle on a series of fruit drinks, sparking controversy. The idea was to connect Mr Muscle’s grease-removing reputation with the tea’s refreshing, palate-cleansing qualities under the shared idea of “cutting through grease.” But for many consumers, the association with household cleaning products was enough to put them off buying the drink. As collaborations become easier to replicate, what remains harder to copy is a genuine cultural connection between two brands. Putting two logos on the same cup is simple; convincing consumers why these particular brands or characters belong together is another matter. Ultimately, a partnership’s value lies not in how much attention it generates but in whether, once the hype fades, consumers have a clear understanding of what each brand stands for and why the pairing makes sense.

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From Chagee to Heytea, China’s tea brands are brewing cultural clout