What the Heytea Tea House closures mean for the history of coffee shop industry

Heytea's sub-brand Heytea Tea House has closed stores in Jiangmen, Huizhou, and Zhongshan within roughly half a year of opening. The Jiangmen Zhongtian Xindi location was the first of its 11 nationwide stores to shut since the brand debuted in 2017. The Huizhou Ganghui Xintiandi store, also opened in April, ceased operations the following day, according to customer service confirmation.

The concept drew on Song Dynasty tea houses and specialized in freshly extracted tea lattes, which made each opening a crowded event. Analysts link the retreat to intense competition in the tea beverage market and the narrow survival space for sub-brands, echoing the earlier discontinuation of Heytea Mini. It is a reminder, in the broader history of coffee shop industry expansion, that novelty formats can stall when traffic and margins thin out.

Heytea's sub-brand Heytea Tea House was recently reported to have closed stores in Jiangmen, Huizhou, and Zhongshan one after another, just half a year after opening. This store, inspired by Song Dynasty tea houses and specializing in freshly extracted tea lattes, was once a popular spot for fans to queue up and check in. Since its launch in 2017, Heytea Tea House has had only 11 stores nationwide, and the Jiangmen Zhongtian Xindi store turned out to be its first to close. This news reminded many consumers of Heytea's previously discontinued sub-brand "Heytea Mini," and also sparked discussions about competition in the tea beverage market and the survival space for sub-brands. Front Street Coffee continues to follow developments in the coffee and tea beverage industry, bringing readers the latest observations.

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Recently, netizens in Jiangmen noticed that the Heytea Tea House located in Jiangmen Zhongtian Xindi had closed without warning. All the equipment in the store had been cleared out, and the storefront sign had been completely removed. The lively scene of locals queuing up to buy when it first opened was gone.

According to Heytea's official statement, Heytea Tea House was inspired by the tea houses of the Song Dynasty, when tea culture was at its peak. The store uses tea extraction machines to make tea and specializes in freshly extracted tea lattes, with its core product being the fresh and refreshing "fresh milk tea."

Because of this unique positioning, Heytea Tea House attracted a large number of fans to check in every time it entered a new city. In April this year, when Heytea Tea House opened its first store in Jiangmen, local milk tea lovers flocked there, and the scene was crowded.

Unexpectedly, however, after only half a year, this once highly anticipated milk tea shop suddenly ceased operations, surprising many fans. At the same time, some pointed out that this was also the first store to close among the 11 existing Heytea Tea House locations since the brand debuted in 2017.

It is worth mentioning that, according to netizen reports, the Heytea Tea House at Huizhou Ganghui Xintiandi, which also opened in April this year, closed the very next day. After verifying with official customer service, the response also confirmed that the store had ceased operations. In addition, a Zhongshan netizen posted that the Zhongshan Daxin Heytea Tea House, which opened in June this year, also ended business the next day.

Seeing Heytea close sub-brand stores one after another, many netizens felt confused and said this scene reminded them of another Heytea sub-brand, "Heytea Mini."

In 2020, Heytea Mini, positioned as "tasty and affordable," quickly won the hearts of milk tea lovers upon launch and was called the affordable version of Heytea. At its peak, it had more than 20 stores. However, when Heytea bid farewell to the 30-yuan era and announced price cuts on multiple products, this "biological child" whose positioning overlapped with the main brand lost its reason to exist. It gradually closed stores in 2022, becoming a regret in the hearts of many longtime fans.

However, in the view of netizens, although Heytea Tea House and Heytea Mini are both sub-brands, their positioning is not the same. Heytea Tea House, with its Chinese style, centers on freshly extracted tea and fresh milk tea. The products themselves have differentiated features and do not conflict with ordinary Heytea stores. Therefore, many people believe that the existence of this brand will not affect the business of regular Heytea stores, and in theory the two should be able to develop separately without interfering with each other.

That said, although Heytea Tea House will not compete with the main brand and the various products it launched are also relatively cost-effective, some netizens believe that in today's highly competitive milk tea market, its visibility in the fresh milk tea niche is far below that of other peers, which has created considerable constraints on its own development.

Some netizens in Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhongshan, and other places also said that they only learned Heytea had such a sub-brand when the tea houses closed. Before that, although these stores held promotions such as buy-one-get-one-free when they opened to attract nearby consumers looking for a bargain, once the "newcomer protection period" ended, business was not ideal.

For this reason, although longtime users lamented that several affordable and high-quality milk tea shops disappeared overnight, they were not surprised that a brand focused on efficiency would eliminate underperforming stores. Some speculated that Heytea Tea House might repeat Heytea Mini's fate, with the remaining stores closing one after another and ultimately becoming an insignificant record in the brand's development history.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.