China 101
New-style Chinese tea drinks
茶饮
The category of freshly-made tea-based drinks, from cheese-foam fruit teas to lemon teas, that Chinese chains built into one of the country's hottest consumer industries.
Chayin, tea drinks, refers to China's new-style tea beverage industry: freshly brewed tea combined with fruit, milk, cheese foam, or brown sugar pearls, sold by chains like HEYTEA, Nayuki, ChaPanda, and Mixue Bingcheng. The category split from older bubble tea around the mid-2010s when HEYTEA's cheese-foam teas drew hours-long queues.
It is now one of China's most competitive consumer arenas. Chains fight over seasonal fruit launches, brand collaborations with games and museums, and price bands from Mixue's one-cup-for-one-dollar floor to premium thirty-yuan creations. Several chains have listed on stock exchanges, and overseas expansion across Southeast Asia and beyond is the industry's current growth story.
Tea drinks also carry cultural weight: young Chinese consumers see them as a modern expression of tea culture, and brands lean into Song-dynasty aesthetics and regional tea origins for storytelling.