China| Boba boom

China’s tea brands want to conquer America, Starbucks-style

中国茶品牌希望效仿星巴克，进军美国市场

A major competition is brewing

一场激烈的竞争正在酝酿之中

Hot stuffPhotograph: Getty Images

May 14th 2026 | 2 min read

BACK IN CHINA Emily Chang’s job was to promote Starbucks. “We were nurturing coffee culture in a country that knows centuries of tea,” says the former chief marketing officer of the American firm in the People’s Republic. Now Ms Chang works for Chagee, a tea chain little known outside China, and is doing the opposite. Her task is to champion the Chinese brand and tea-drinking habit in coffee-centric America (and to resist a tendency to mispronounce Chagee—the letter g is soft).

回到中国后，张蔚（音译）的工作是推广星巴克。这位曾任职于这家美国企业的中国区首席营销官表示：“我们曾在有着数千年茶文化底蕴的国度里，培育咖啡消费文化。”如今，她入职了霸王茶姬。该茶饮品牌在海外知名度偏低，而她此番使命截然相反：在咖啡盛行的美国市场，打响这个中国茶饮品牌、传播中式饮茶习惯，同时还要纠正人们常读错的品牌发音（字母g发音轻柔）。

Last year the chain became one of the many firms trying to gain a foothold in America. Their outlets offer bubble tea, fruit tea and fresh Chinese tea, sometimes capped with milky foam. The Chinese newcomers are taking on the long-established competition from Taiwan which helped spread the word “boba” in the first place. (It was originally a Chinese slang term meaning “busty”, as a synonym in English for bubble tea with its pearl-sized balls made of tapioca starch.) In America the coffee market is 28 times bigger than that of freshly made tea, reckons Huachuang Securities, a brokerage. This, it says, theoretically creates “vast substitution potential”.

去年，这家茶饮品牌跻身众多赴美开拓市场的企业行列。门店主打珍珠奶茶、果茶以及新式原叶茶，部分茶饮顶部还配有绵密奶盖。这批新晋中式茶饮品牌，正与深耕市场多年的中国台湾茶饮品牌展开角逐，而“波霸”这一叫法最初也正是由台湾茶饮带出。该词源自汉语俚语，本意形容丰满体态，后用来指代木薯淀粉制成圆珠的珍珠奶茶。据华创证券测算，美国现磨咖啡市场规模是新式茶饮市场的28倍，理论上茶饮拥有极大的市场替代空间。

The Chinese firms’ presence is still small. HeyTea, an upmarket brand, has led the way, opening more than 40 American shops since 2023. Just nine of Chagee’s 7,500-odd global outlets are in the States. Mixue, a giant bubble-tea and ice-cream seller, is the world’s largest food-and-beverage chain. But just five of its 60,000 outlets are in America. By comparison, Gong Cha, a Taiwanese brand, runs 2,200 outlets globally and more than 240 in America; Coco, another chain from Taiwan, has more than 5,000 franchises globally and dozens in America. The Chinese contingent wants to overtake them.

中国大陆茶饮品牌在美国的布局规模仍然较小。高端品牌喜茶一马当先，自2023年起已在美国开出40多家门店。霸王茶姬全球7500余家门店中，仅9家位于美国。全球最大餐饮连锁蜜雪冰城拥有6万家门店，在美国也仅有5家。相比之下，中国台湾品牌贡茶在全球有2200家门店，美国超过240家；另一台湾品牌CoCo都可全球加盟店超5000家，美国有数十家。这批来自中国大陆的茶饮新势力，正力图赶超它们。

Partly this is because there is too much bubble tea brewing at home. The firms making it in China are eager to find new customers abroad, says Tom Chen of Kepler Mission Design, an American marketing agency. Some American customers see their fare, which includes low-sugar options, as healthier than dessert. “Sometimes I’m like I can’t eat ice cream right now. But I can go get myself a boba, that’s not so bad!” says Isabella Destio in New York’s Midtown. “They’re way better to have in the afternoon than coffee. They don’t give you the caffeine crash.” Down the street, Eric Li walks out of a bustling branch of Mixue, where Spring Oolong Milk Tea sells for $3.99. As a Chinese-American, he says he’s happy to see many non-Chinese enjoying his culture. “There’s some tension right now, internationally, but it’s good that everyone can get together over a drink,” he says. ¢

综部分原因在于国内茶饮市场竞争趋于饱和。美国开普勒使命设计营销机构的陈汤姆表示，国内茶饮企业纷纷出海开拓海外客源。多款饮品支持低糖选择，不少美国消费者认为这类茶饮比甜品更健康。纽约中城区的伊莎贝拉·德斯蒂奥说道：“有时候不想吃冰淇淋，喝杯珍珠奶茶就刚刚好。午后喝茶饮远比咖啡合适，也不会出现咖啡因后劲乏力的状况。”街边一家客流兴旺的蜜雪冰城门店，春韵乌龙奶茶售价3.99美元。华裔美国人埃里克・李刚走出店铺，他乐见越来越多外籍人士感受中式茶饮文化。他表示，当下国际局势存在些许分歧，能以一杯茶饮拉近彼此距离，实属好事。

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