A few things on my radar #26
Tea's Revolution - ChaGee, MĀMĀHĒCHÁ（妈妈喝茶) and BASAO
👏🙋Hello, hello! Thanks for reading The Momentum — an independent publication without ads or affiliate links. Feel free to subscribe to receive new posts and support my work!
The Revolutions Reshaping China’s Tea Industry
China’s tea culture, ancient and revered, is undergoing a modern metamorphosis. Moving beyond sugary milk teas (I’m already tired of these unhealthy, cheap drinks), a new wave of brands is driving a sophisticated transformation. They are systematically applying the logic, aesthetics, and business models of the global coffee industry to reinvent tea for a new generation. This isn’t just a trend; it’s a fundamental restructuring of the sector 👇
ChaGee — The Giant’s Double Game: Globalization & Product Pivot
Fierce competition and sliding same-store sales in its domestic market are pushing Chagee, a leading Chinese milk tea chain, to aggressively pursue a dual strategy.
Global Expansion: The company is reporting strong international growth, particularly in Southeast Asia and North America, as it seeks new frontiers for growth.
Domestic Innovation: In the domestic market, Chagee is accelerating R&D investment and launching new products while exploring new categories such as low-caffeine series and fresh-brewed tea (so-called tea espresso)—searching for a “second growth curve” beyond its signature milk tea made with pre-steeped whole-leaf tea base.
ChaGee’s moves are a classic case of a maturing consumer giant. The domestic market is now a saturated, red-ocean battlefield requiring deep cultivation, while overseas expansion offers a release valve for growth ambitions.
Its foray into pure-leaf tea and tea-lattes is particularly telling—it represents an attempt to migrate the standardization and premiumization playbook of the coffee industry (e.g., moving from lattes to pour-overs) to the tea world. Educating consumers to appreciate these more nuanced products is a capital- and time-intensive endeavor, underscoring the immense pressure on public companies to simultaneously defend their core business and invent their future.
MĀMĀHĒCHÁ — The “Reverse Growth” Model of a Regional Challenger
“MĀMĀHĒCHÁ” (妈妈喝茶), a boutique tea brand that started in the lower-tier city of Zhenjiang, has now opened a location on Shanghai’s trendy Xiangyang South Road. The brand distinguished itself by applying coffee cocktail techniques to tea, creating innovative tea-based beverages.
Its successful expansion follows a “test in tier-2/3 cities, scale in tier-1” model reminiscent of the mass-market giant Mixue Bingcheng’s strategy, but applied to a premium context.
Mama Hecha exemplifies a shrewd “reverse growth” strategy. By developing and refining its unique and creative product proposition in a lower-cost, less-saturated market, it avoided a costly head-on fight with giants in Shanghai or Beijing from day one. This approach allows a brand to achieve product-market fit, build a confident identity, and then enter major metropolitan areas with a proven concept and a compelling story. It’s a viable, capital-efficient growth model for artisanal F&B brands just like Mixue that blends grassroots authenticity with ambitious scale.
BASAO — The Systematic Reinvention of Pure Tea
BASAO, a premium tea brand from Xiamen, is taking a radical approach to China’s most traditional product: pure, unadulterated tea. It is methodically rebuilding the sensory appreciation system for Chinese tea by adopting the lexicon and logic of third-wave coffee. This includes a focus on single-origin traceability, precise processing methods, and a standardized brewing methodology akin to pour-over coffee.
BASAO and many local brands are tackling the core problem of traditional tea: opaque value and subjective quality assessment. By introducing coffee’s framework of flavor wheels, standardized parameters, and traceable provenance, BASAO gives an ancient product a modern, universal language. This demystifies high-quality tea and dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for curious, younger consumers raised on specialty coffee. Its mission is the most profound of the three: it’s not just selling a beverage—it’s fundamentally reconstructing the value proposition of pure tea for the 21st century within China version.
💎 The Big Picture: The “Coffee-fication” of Tea and a Looming Supply Chain Revolution
Collectively, ChaGee’s scale, Mama Hecha’s savvy, and BASAO’s depth paint a complete picture of an industry in transition. The common thread is the strategic migration of methodologies from coffee to tea.
This “coffee-fication” is transforming tea from an artisanal “craft” reliant on vague expertise into a systematic, scalable “science.” The well-established pillars of the global coffee industry—supply chain management, sensory education, retail experience, and global brand building—are being expertly adapted.
The most significant long-term impact will be upstream. This consumer-driven revolution, demanding transparency, quality, and consistency, will inevitably force a modernization of China’s fragmented and often opaque tea supply chain. The old ways of trading and storytelling will be supplanted by data-driven, quality-focused operations. In this fiercely competitive and innovative environment, the emergence of future global tea champions is not just possible—it is inevitable.