What Does the Mixue Bingcheng Zhengzhou Store Mean for Coffee?
Mixue Bingcheng opened its first Snow King Castle Experience Store in Zhengzhou Guomao on September 28, expanding beyond ice cream and tea into fried skewers, desserts, coffee, merchandise and claw machines. The chain, which runs more than 10,000 domestic stores, also folded Henan specialties like braised noodles and baked pancakes into its drinks, a sharp break from its low-price tea format.
The move matters because Mixue built its reputation on items priced under 10 yuan, with some at 3 yuan, and is now testing a wider menu that includes coffee and snacks. For anyone who wants to write about coffee retail in China, the store shows how a mass-market tea brand can stretch into coffee without abandoning its value positioning.
As a leading tea beverage chain brand with the highest number of stores in China, Mixue Bingcheng is deeply loved by students and office workers for its ultra-high cost-performance ratio. On September 28, the company officially announced that its first Snow King Castle Experience Store nationwide would open in Zhengzhou Guomao, breaking the previous impression of focusing solely on ice cream and tea drinks by integrating elements such as fried skewers, desserts, coffee, merchandise, and claw machines. Even more surprisingly, Henan's local specialties, braised noodles and baked pancakes, have been creatively incorporated into the drinks. What highlights does this experience store offer? What kind of brand ambition does Mixue Bingcheng's diversified layout reveal? This article will take you on an exploration.
"You love me, I love you, Mixue Bingcheng sweet as honey..."
Everyone must have heard this catchy tune. Mixue Bingcheng is now one of the tea beverage chain brands with the highest number of stores nationwide. According to its official website, domestic stores have exceeded 10,000, covering an extremely wide area. Walking home, there's one at the start of the street and another at the end—the density is simply astonishing.
Besides the astonishing number of stores, what else about Mixue Bingcheng gets people talking? The answer is obvious—anyone who has bought its products knows that almost no item at Mixue Bingcheng costs more than 10 yuan, and some are even just 3 yuan. With this ultra-affordable pricing strategy, Mixue Bingcheng is hailed as the "eternal god" by students and is also favored by office workers.
In most people's impressions, Mixue Bingcheng has always been a brand focused on ice cream and tea drinks. However, an official Weibo post on September 28 completely overturned this stereotype. The company announced that its first nationwide [Snow King Castle Experience Store] has officially opened in Zhengzhou Guomao. It not only innovatively upgraded drink recipes but also incorporated many elements popular among young people, including fried skewers, desserts, coffee, Snow King (Mixue Bingcheng's brand mascot) merchandise, snacks, and claw machines.
Once the news broke, netizens showered it with praise. While expressing their love and praising Mixue Bingcheng as "yyds" (the greatest of all time), many also expressed their desire to visit and experience it.
Mixue Bingcheng's move is truly clever! As a Henan local brand, it has put braised noodles and baked pancakes into its drinks, jokingly dubbed by netizens as a "Henan specialty drink shop." Fishing braised noodles out of coconut milk and rolling ice cream in baked pancakes—this combination is indeed novel enough. Some netizens found the taste pleasantly surprising, with a rich coconut milk flavor and actual braised noodle pieces, offering a complex mouthfeel; others thought it was too bizarre, with a taste that was hard to describe. Whether it's good to drink (or eat), if you happen to be in Zhengzhou, why not try it yourself? (Writer No. 6 says they have no such luck).
From the official photos, the store presents an overall industrial style, clean and minimalist. [Mixue Castle] is divided into nine areas: food preparation and serving area, coffee & bakery area, milk tea & fruit tea area, fried skewers, ice cream house, ice cream interactive area, Snow King Magic Shop, themed photo area, and rest area. Each area is staffed by dedicated personnel. Customers can not only drink beverages, eat fried skewers, and DIY ice cream by hand, but also buy the most complete range of Snow King merchandise ever—so tempting that even Writer No. 6 is smitten.
This first experience store is another big news following #Mixue Bingcheng Establishes Agricultural Company with 50 Million Yuan#. According to the official website, Mixue Bingcheng has a complete trinity production chain: an independent product R&D team with core raw materials capitalized; nationwide warehousing and logistics, efficient and fast; and professional brand operations with comprehensive training management. Venturing into agriculture is a move by Mixue Bingcheng for further expansion, starting differentiated layout from the raw material end.
In early June, Mixue Bingcheng's new theme song successfully implanted the image of Snow King into the public mind and quickly went viral across the internet. This is also one of the key factors for Mixue Bingcheng leading its competitors in the fiercely competitive tea beverage arena—brand-building capability.
First Nayuki's Tea popularized niche fruits like "ganyu," then Heytea created the nation's first handmade store—competition in the tea beverage industry seems to be escalating. Just as Mixue Bingcheng's slogan goes, "Make the brand stronger, make partners richer, let everyone worldwide enjoy high-quality, affordable deliciousness," Mixue Bingcheng is diversifying, emphasizing product innovation, and continuously improving its industry chain. However, whether the experience store model can truly change customers' perception of the brand's positioning and thereby elevate its status remains to be seen in Mixue Bingcheng's next moves.
Image source: Mixue Bingcheng official Weibo
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
