Chagee
|
Chagee (Simplified Chinese: 霸王茶姬; Pinyin: Bàwáng chá jī; also styled CHAGEE) is a Chinese tea-drink brand that markets original-leaf (原叶) milk tea and related made-to-order teas. This page records category positioning and verified company milestones for Chinese Drink readers—not a store or menu guide.
History and expansion
Junjie Zhang founded the company in 2017. The first teahouse opened on Wuyi Road in Kunming, Yunnan, on 17 November 2017, linking the brand’s early story to a province long associated with leaf-tea production. From that base the chain scaled across mainland China and into several Southeast Asian markets (including Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia), with Hong Kong also in the network.
On 17 April 2025, Chagee Holdings Limited priced an initial public offering of American Depositary Shares and began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker CHA. Contemporary IPO materials and press placed worldwide store count above 6,400 at the end of 2024 and described plans for North American teahouses. Listing status, store totals, and market footprint should be verified against current investor disclosures.
Products and brand style
Public branding emphasizes tea liquor extracted from whole leaves combined with dairy, presented as a premium or “original leaf” alternative to powder-heavy milk-tea formulas. Named series such as snow-cap milk teas and teaspresso-style drinks appear in company materials as signature directions rather than a fixed menu. The format overlaps with Bubble Tea shop culture while claiming a stronger link to leaf identity discussed on Tea.
Culture and collaborations
Chagee’s marketing often leans on literary or character storytelling—soft, narrative IP rather than pure discount campaigns. Greater China observers have noted Mid-Autumn and regional collabs (for example literary or healing character themes) that circulate as social-media moments. Dated collaboration rows belong on Drink IP Collab Timeline. Within the modern tea-shop set the brand is commonly contrasted with cheese-foam pioneers such as Heytea and value giants such as Mixue.
In encyclopedia framing, Chagee is often read as an attempt to reconnect made-to-order milk tea with leaf provenance storytelling—Yunnan origin myths, original-leaf extraction language, and literary packaging—while still competing in the same high-street queue economy as other Chinese Drink chains. Readers comparing capital-market timelines will note that its 2025 U.S. listing followed several Hong Kong tea IPOs and Luckin’s earlier Nasdaq chapter.
See also
References
- Chagee Holdings Limited Nasdaq IPO pricing / MarketSite materials, April 2025 (ticker CHA).
- Company investor and “history” pages noting Kunming first store (17 November 2017) and founder Junjie Zhang.
- CNBC and other business press coverage of the 2025 debut and store footprint.