What does a tea brand's store closures say about coffee culture?

Grandpa's Tea, the new-style tea brand from Wuhan, has closed or withdrawn stores in Zibo, Suzhou, Shouguang and Poyang. The co-founder had aimed for at least 4,500 stores and a stretch target of 5,000 in 2025, but only 2,274 were operating as of October 18, leaving a clear gap. The company calls the closures normal franchisee optimization.

Mall staff told reporters the Zibo locations left after poor performance and contract expiry, and second-hand trading accounts are listing used Grandpa's Tea equipment. Other tea chains, including Xiamen's Sevenbus and Shenzhen's 813 Ba Yi Shan, have also run into store closure trouble. The episode sits inside a broader specialty coffee culture of rapid expansion meeting slower real demand.

Recently, the new-style tea beverage brand Grandpa's Tea, originating from Wuhan, has been reported to have closed or withdrawn stores in multiple locations including Zibo, Shandong, Suzhou, Jiangsu, and Poyang, Jiangxi, sparking consumer concerns about its business condition. The brand's co-founder once set an expansion goal of at least 4,500 stores and a stretch target of 5,000 stores for 2025, but as of October 18, only 2,274 stores were in operation, a clear gap from the target. Meanwhile, well-known tea beverage brands such as Xiamen's Sevenbus and Shenzhen's 813 Ba Yi Shan have also fallen into store closure turmoil. In response to outside doubts, Grandpa's Tea said that adjustments to individual stores are normal optimization behavior by franchisees and that overall operations are sound. This article will sort out the ins and outs of the incident and present the brand's response along with the industry background.

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Recently, a netizen posted that a Grandpa's Tea store opened at Wangfujing Plaza in Zibo, Shandong, quietly closed last week. The post also mentioned that another Grandpa's Tea store at Jingkai Wuyue in Zibo ended operations even earlier.

In addition, according to posts published by netizens on social media, the brand's Suzhou Center store in Jiangsu, Shouguang Wanda store in Shandong, and the only two stores in Poyang, Jiangxi, all closed in recent times.

In response to the situation reported by netizens, a media reporter called the Grandpa's Tea Zibo Wangfujing store. One contact number was switched off, while the other went unanswered. Wangfujing staff said the Grandpa's Tea store had completed procedures and closed last week, but said they did not know the specific reason for the closure.

Jingkai Wuyue Plaza said that Grandpa's Tea had withdrawn from the store a month ago. Regarding the reason for the withdrawal, Wuyue Plaza staff said the store's performance was poor and, combined with the expiration of its contract with the mall, it withdrew and left. According to the reporter's investigation, as of now there are still two Grandpa's Tea stores operating in Zibo.

It is worth mentioning that the reporter found on an online second-hand trading market that many milk tea equipment buying and selling accounts were offering second-hand Grandpa's Tea equipment for sale. One account said the store opened in November 2024 and was seeking to transfer the full set of equipment after only 3 months of operation.

It is understood that Grandpa's Tea is a new-style tea beverage brand originating from Wuhan and opened its first store in 2018 at Baigang City in Nanhu, Wuhan. Related reports show that its co-founder proposed at the beginning of the year the goal of "at least 4,500 stores in 2025, sprinting for 5,000." However, data from Zhaimen Canyan shows that as of October 18, the brand had 2,274 stores in operation, far below the minimum target proposed by its co-founder.

According to another report by Yilan Business, Grandpa's Tea closed 22 stores this month and exited 1 city. It said that although the brand is expanding rapidly, to achieve the full-year goal of 4,500 stores, Grandpa's Tea would need to open at least more than 2,000 new stores in the remaining more than two months, which is a huge challenge.

In the past year, many well-known tea beverage brands have frequently been reported to be closing stores. For example, Xiamen's internet-famous tea beverage brand Sevenbus once had more than 400 stores nationwide at its peak, but in May this year it saw large-scale closures and now has fewer than 20. Shenzhen's "Hermes of the milk tea world" and the top first-generation internet-famous milk tea brand 813 Ba Yi Shan has also fallen into store closure turmoil. The permanent closure of its Shimu Di store made local consumers say bluntly that "a generation's memory of Shenzhen city is gone."

Various messages online have led many users, upon discovering that Grandpa's Tea closed several stores, to worry about the brand's future development, fearing that Grandpa's Tea might also quietly fall into a wave of store closures like other brands.

In response, Grandpa's Tea said in a media interview that it currently has about 110 signed stores in Shandong and that overall operations are good. A small number of stores have relocated or closed due to factors such as changes in the market environment, business district adjustments, and changes in the match between rent and foot traffic. These are normal optimization actions by franchisees at different stages, not systemic shrinkage or an operational crisis, and users do not need to feel anxious because of online store closure reports.

Image source: Internet

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