Chinese Milk Tea Brands Going Global: What It Means for Gulf Newcomers

Key facts

Chinese milk tea brands going global reached a new marker this month. A white paper released during the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services counts 40 Chinese tea brands running 9,805 stores outside mainland China as of the first half of 2026, spread across Southeast Asia, North America, the Middle East, and Oceania. The report, compiled by Guangxi Radio and Television Station with Yuan Yi Think Tank and an agricultural research unit, was covered by financial outlets including 10jqka and Sohu on September 23.

Mixue leads by a wide margin, with 4,378 overseas stores across 17 countries and regions after recently adding Mexico, Brazil, and Kyrgyzstan. Chagee, whose Chinese name is Bawang Chaji, runs 399 stores across eight overseas markets including Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, and South Korea. ChaPanda has 72 open overseas stores and more than 100 signed, across 13 countries, with South Korea as its largest market, where local customers now make up more than 80 percent of sales. Auntea Jenny and Nayuki trail with 61 and roughly 30 overseas stores.

The push abroad tracks a domestic slowdown. China's tea shop count fell by a net 29,300 outlets in 2025, and the report frames the shift as a move from chasing scale at home to chasing per-store profit, at home and abroad alike.

What it means for the Gulf market

The white paper lists the Middle East as one of the four regions holding part of that 9,805-store footprint, but none of the five brands above has disclosed a Gulf-specific store count. Their public market lists still run through Southeast Asia, the United States, and South Korea. The region is inside the industry's stated map, not yet inside its biggest names' spreadsheets.

That gap is worth watching rather than assuming it stays open. Taiwan-founded bubble tea chains, close cousins in the same category, have already tested the entry model on Saudi ground. Gong cha's master franchise agreement with Shahia Food Group opened three stores in Riyadh, including one in The View Mall, with four more under construction, and the two companies have discussed a deal that could eventually reach 300 outlets across the Middle East. Sharetea and Chatime, also Taiwan-founded, already appear on Saudi franchise-opportunity lists alongside Gong cha. The playbook for entering Saudi Arabia with an East Asian tea concept is not theoretical here. It is already running, just not yet under a mainland Chinese name at scale.

Compliance is the other half of the opening. Analysts tracking the sector's overseas stumbles point to halal certification and conformity assessments as the costs that stop under-capitalized brands from following the largest five past Southeast Asia. For a new entrant sizing up Riyadh or the wider Gulf, treating halal certification and local supply arrangements as a first-year cost of entry, not a later fix, is the difference between joining the region's next wave and watching it arrive from Southeast Asia instead.

Background

The overseas wave is real, but it is also getting more expensive to ride. Mixue posted its first net contraction in overseas store count in 2025, a loss of 428 stores after years of only adding. Chagee moved from about 20 directly operated stores in mid-2024 to 236 by the first quarter of 2026, deliberately trading its early franchise model for slower, capital-heavy direct operations across most Asia-Pacific markets. Auntea Jenny, a smaller mainland chain, had opened only 45 stores abroad by the end of 2025, spread across the United States, South Korea, and Malaysia, modest scale next to the headline numbers this wave implies. In New York, Molly Tea suspended its brand license from a local operating partner's stores in May 2026 after a dispute over point-of-sale systems and financial oversight, then won a federal court order barring those shops from using its name and trademarks. The affected stores rebranded overnight rather than close, a reminder that the loose franchise contracts many brands used to enter quickly are now generating lawsuits instead of growth.

The pattern across these cases repeats. The first wave of Chinese tea brands abroad moved fast on light contracts and thin local investment. The brands still standing now are the ones rebuilding with direct operations, local supply chains, and paperwork that holds up under scrutiny, including the certifications that Gulf and Islamic markets already require as a baseline, not an extra.

Takeaway

Forty brands and 9,805 stores is a real number, but it sits mostly in Southeast Asia and North America, not the Gulf, and even the biggest names on that list are learning that overseas growth now costs more and moves slower than the early franchise rush implied. For anyone opening a tea concept in Saudi Arabia or the wider Gulf, the useful read is not that a flood of mainland Chinese chains is imminent. It is that the region's entry model is already proven by Taiwan-founded rivals, the mainland's largest brands have not yet claimed it, and the brands built to clear halal certification and local supply requirements on day one, rather than treat them as a later fix, are the ones likely to still be standing when that wave does reach the Gulf.