Tracking Chagee, the Chinese tea empire that is challenging to hit Starbucks around the world

Tracking Chagee, a Chinese tea empire that is challenging to hit Starbucks around the world. 🍵

.

Have you ever heard of Chagee? an up-and-coming Chinese tea brand overtaking the curve, and a vision to be the "Starbucks of the Eastern World"?

.

1. The founder's vision from a tea shop employee to seeing huge opportunities.

Jeang Junier started as a small milk tea shop employee at the age of 17 with diligence and sharp eyesight. He learned everything about the industry and saw the limitations of traditional franchises. The key turning point was a trip abroad in 2014.

.

To study the beverage trend, he saw that "new flavors of tea" are popular with younger generations around the world, especially the stream of pearl milk tea that has become a hangout. He was even more confident that "the tea market has a lot of unlocked potential," as he saw Hey Tea in China, where people waited up to six hours.

.

Entrepreneurs must have a "sharp eye" that sees gaps and opportunities that others overlook; from real experience and from global trends, learning from competitors and other markets can always spark big ideas.

.

2.Branding and positioning. Merge traditional Chinese charm into modernity.

.

Returning to China in 2017, Jeang founded Chagee.

It means "overlord tea," reflecting a great vision.

With the goal of creating a tea brand that can compete with big brands.

.

Quality is Heart Chagee focuses on "fresh milk tea brewed from authentic tea and fresh milk," attracting a new group of health-conscious people.

.

Merging Chinese culture, Chagee's shop decor combines "traditional Chinese vibes with modernism" using Chinese motifs, stinkles masks and classical architecture. This is interwoven with the up-and-coming "Guochao trend," which celebrates Chinese culture in the modern way, giving Chagee a perfect access to its roots and glorifying Chinese tea culture.

.

Strong branding is to combine "quality" with

"Stories and cultures" that customers can relate to, understanding social trends and applying them to brands, will help build deep customer engagement.

.

3. The "119N Model" expansion strategy is fast-growing but quality-controlled.

.

Chagee has a highly interesting and disciplined branch expansion strategy, gradually building a base in a small town before using Chengdu City as its main base before expanding throughout China, and receiving a large sum of capital to 320 million yuan in 2021 to drive growth, and by 2022 they opened more than 600 new branches across China.

.

Technology helps expand: In order to maintain "consistent quality and taste," amid rapid expansion, Chagee has adopted an "automatic tea maker," which also allows faster order preparation.

.

Simple menus, they highlight the main easy-to-understand menus: fresh milk tea, fresh fruit tea and lemon tea.

.

The 119N model, this is a key innovation. Chagee will set up a new company in a new area, open a "flag chip store" to test the market, followed by several "pilot stores," and then start a "large franchise system." This allows for rapid expansion, but still control the brand and adapt to the local market.

.

Fast business expansion must be accompanied by strict "quality control," investment in technologies and systems that enable efficient operations, and having flexible expansion models, will help steady business growth.

.

4.Strong Supply Chain system, ensure raw material quality.

.

Jeang Junier understood that "strong Supply Chain is the heart of success," so he invested seriously.

.

The source of its own production, Chagee invested in "over 2,700 acres of its own tea plantations" to achieve high-quality tea leaves and consistent flavors in all fields.

.

A strategic partner, they partnered with a tea processing plant and also teamed up with the Chabido tea brand to set up a joint Supply Chain company that allows sharing resources and expertise and creating a competitive advantage.

.

Using management technology, Chagee uses a "semi-automatic tea production process" with QR Code specific to every order to reduce faults and adopt advanced logistics systems in stock management, transportation tracking and demand forecasting, which was very important during COVID-19.

.

Having a strong and controllable Supply Chain from upstream to downstream is the key to maintaining quality, reducing costs and building brand credibility.

.

5. Marketing, sustainability and global dreams

.

Chagee not only sells tea, but also promotes Chinese tea culture, and has even greater goals.

.

Grow Covid Current Garden Chagee took the opportunity during Covid-19 to open a rapidly increasing number of branches, relying on cheaper rents to capture the goldland.

.

Sustainability-conscious Through the "Green Tea Horizon" plan, Chagee turned to tea from Fair Trade farms and reduced the use of plastic to answer environmentally conscious clients1.

.

Promote Chagee culture, cooperate with the Beijing Palace Museum. Organize the exhibition "Tea World of the Forbidden City" to educate the rich Chinese tea tradition.

.

"Oriental Starbucks" vision Jeang Junier dreams of making Chagee the "Starbucks of the Eastern World" by aiming to serve tea in 100 countries and sell billions of glasses of tea a year. They have now opened more than 100 stores in Southeast Asia, which is just the beginning of their global plan.

.

The rapid growth of the Chagee, and their global vision, is a testament to the spirit of entrepreneurs like the far-sighted Jeang Junier, by combining "traditional Chinese tea culture" with "modern digital marketing."

.

Investing in a strong Supply Chain and disciplined expansion model, Chagee has established himself as a key player in the global beverage market despite facing the challenge of maintaining "Chinese identity" to "local tastes" in the global market.

.

Subjects of little people

# Subjects of little people # Chinese tea # Beverage business # startup # Online Marketing