Last Updated -
April 15, 2026
Explore the business model, global strategy, and market performance including insights into its position in China.
Founded in 2017 by Junjie Zhang, Chagee opened its first store in Yunnan, China, and is now headquartered in Shanghai. The brand takes inspiration from Yunnan’s tea heritage and the Ancient Tea Horse Road, then translates that legacy into a modern premium tea format built around freshly made drinks. Chagee’s stated mission is to bring people and cultures together through tea, while its vision is to modernize the tea-drinking experience through technology and innovation.
Chagee focuses on premium fresh tea beverages, including milk teas, brewed teas, and other tea-based drinks made with whole tea leaves and positioned for everyday consumption. The company presents itself as a health-oriented brand, with an emphasis on fresh preparation, lower-calorie products, and a lifestyle experience that blends traditional tea culture with contemporary retail design. Since its launch, Chagee has expanded from China into other Asia-Pacific markets, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Chagee has grown into one of the largest scaled premium tea chains to emerge from China in recent years. After going public on Nasdaq in April 2025 under the ticker CHA, the company ended 2025 with 7,453 teahouses across Greater China and overseas. For full-year 2025, Chagee reported RMB 31.58 billion in GMV and RMB 12.91 billion in net revenue, showing how far the business has moved from a single Yunnan store to a large listed consumer brand with international ambitions.
Chagee operates a hybrid model built around a large franchised teahouse network, centralized control over products, branding, supply chain, and digital channels, plus a rising company-owned store base. As of 31 December 2025, the network included 7,453 teahouses, of which 6,838 were franchised and 615 were company-owned. The revenue mix still leaned heavily toward franchising in Q4 2025, with franchised teahouses generating RMB2.43 billion, or 81.9% of total revenue, while company-owned teahouses contributed RMB539.6 million, or 18.1%.
At the market-position level, Chagee’s edge is scale inside the premium category. In its IPO materials, the company described its network as the largest among premium freshly made tea drinks brands in China. Management later said its rapid expansion helped it take the lead in premium-category market share. The current weak spot is store productivity in Greater China. Average monthly GMV per teahouse in Greater China fell to RMB337,358 in Q4 2025, and same-store GMV growth was negative 25.5%, which shows the next phase is less about store count and more about same-store recovery, efficiency, and margin stability.
China remains Chagee’s core market by a wide margin. As of 31 December 2025, the company operated 6,700 franchised teahouses and 408 company-owned teahouses in Greater China. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Greater China generated RMB6.95 billion in GMV. In its listing materials, Chagee also described itself as the largest premium freshly-made tea drinks brand in China by store network, which underlines its scale and national visibility in the premium tea segment.
Overall, Chagee’s position in China is still defined by scale, brand strength, and digital reach. The main issue heading into 2026 is not store count. It is restoring same-store sales momentum while protecting premium pricing and brand discipline.
Chagee enters 2026 in a transition year. The business still delivered RMB31.58 billion in full-year GMV and expanded to 7,453 teahouses by the end of 2025, but the next phase is less about network growth and more about restoring store productivity, sharpening execution, and improving profitability after a weaker second half. In Q4 2025, same-store GMV in Greater China fell 25.5% year over year, and full-year operating margin declined to 10.4% from 23.3% in 2024. Management said the internal realignment started in the second half of 2025 is largely complete and described 2026 as a year focused on steadier, higher-quality growth.
Challenges ahead are also clear. China’s delivery-platform subsidy competition hurt traffic and cup sales in 2025, and average monthly GMV per teahouse in Greater China fell to RMB 337,358 in Q4. At the same time, Chagee’s overseas push, especially in the United States, requires heavier upfront investment. Management explicitly said the chosen globalization route demands higher capex and carries a risk of near-term financial volatility. For investors, the central question in 2026 is whether Chagee restores same-store momentum in China while keeping overseas expansion disciplined and unit economics healthy.
This Company Profile was written by Dominik Diemer
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