High price coffee brands and the Zhangye Heytea rebranding as Yicha

The HEYTEA Ganzhou Market store in Zhangye, Gansu reopened under the sign Yicha after renovations, while a HEYTEA mini-program QR code still sat at the entrance. Neither Zhangye store appears on official channels now. The change traces back to disputes over city-exclusive fridge magnets, and the new Yicha has no official link to HEYTEA.

HEYTEA opened its first Zhangye store on May 2, 2024, and a second was expected around November but stayed locked behind hoarding. By December both locations had vanished from the mini-program. Local customers who hoped to collect regional merchandise were left disappointed, and netizens have questioned whether Yicha's lettering infringes on the brand.

The HEYTEA Ganzhou Market store in Zhangye, Gansu, quietly changed its sign to "Yicha" after renovations were completed, and a HEYTEA mini-program QR code is still posted at the entrance, but the store can no longer be found on official channels. From the frenzy of check-ins sparked by the opening of the first store, to the second store remaining unopened long after hoarding was put up, to both stores disappearing from the official mini-program, this series of changes is actually related to the distribution rules for city-exclusive fridge magnets. Now the "Yicha" reopening at the original site has no connection to HEYTEA official, and its font has been questioned by netizens as infringement. Local consumers' expectations have been disappointed, and they still hope the brand can re-enter Zhangye.

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Recently, a netizen in Zhangye, Gansu, noticed that the HEYTEA Ganzhou Market store, which had already completed renovations, finally opened its doors to customers, but unexpectedly, the sign on the store did not say "HEYTEA," but "Yicha." At the same time, a HEYTEA mini-program QR code was still posted on one side of the store entrance, but after scanning it to enter the official mini-program, no information about this store could be found.

This situation quickly attracted a great deal of attention and discussion among HEYTEA fan groups. On May 2, 2024, HEYTEA opened its first store in Zhangye, which at the time attracted many consumers to check in. A few months after the opening of the first store at Zhonggulou, HEYTEA's second store in Zhangye, namely the Ganzhou Market store, was photographed by passersby as being under hoarding and renovation.

However, the HEYTEA Zhangye second store, originally planned to open around November last year, did not open as everyone had expected. Some customers who wanted to get the regional exclusive fridge magnets reported that when they arrived at the store, they only saw the doors tightly locked, with none of the bustle they had imagined.

What was even more unexpected was that by December, some users discovered that the two Zhangye stores could no longer be found on HEYTEA's official mini-program. This sudden situation left many netizens puzzled: why would HEYTEA quietly withdraw from Zhangye?

In this regard, local residents familiar with the situation revealed that the reason HEYTEA closed its Zhangye stores was related to the exclusive fridge magnets the brand designed for each city.

It is understood that HEYTEA's two stores in Zhangye were both franchise stores. After the first store opened, the city-exclusive fridge magnets given away with the event became highly sought-after items among collectors because of their unique designs. Some fans from other places, in order to get this fridge magnet with local characteristics, even asked others to drink on their behalf or buy it for them, causing the price of this merchandise to be driven higher and higher.

A person familiar with the first store's opening event said that after the check-in event began, the store arbitrarily changed the rules for collecting the fridge magnets, disrupting market order and triggering widespread dissatisfaction among users. Subsequently, the store franchisee was forcibly terminated by HEYTEA due to certain violations, ultimately leading to the outcome for Zhangye's two stores over more than half a year: "one closed down and one could not open."

(The picture shows HEYTEA's first store in Zhangye)

As for the newly opened "Yicha," although it reopened at the original site of HEYTEA's second store and its name is similar to HEYTEA, it has no connection to HEYTEA official. Some netizens said bluntly: "This store now has nothing to do with HEYTEA at all, right? It's just an independent startup store, right?"

Interestingly, some netizens with a more particular focus saw that this store's sign is extremely similar to other HEYTEA stores and believed the store's approach may constitute infringement. "With this font, HEYTEA can sue him; this is HEYTEA's exclusive font, it's copyrighted." "HEYTEA has the copyright to this glyph, aren't they afraid of being sued?"

Local HEYTEA fans said they had originally hoped to drink a cup of HEYTEA right at their doorstep, and watching the two stores go from site selection and renovation to withdrawal, step by step turning users' expectations into reality, they never expected the happiness of milk tea lovers to last only half a year before disappearing. Amid disappointment, many local consumers still hope the brand can once again enter Zhangye and choose a new site to open a store.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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