Food & BeverageMulti-region
← Sticker Wall
JOURNEY · DETAIL
Chun Shui Tang | Originator of Bubble Tea and Pioneer of the Humanistic Teahouse Model
Founded: Liu Han-Chieh · Chun Shui Tang Industrial Co., Ltd.
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryFood & Beverage
RegionMulti-region
ScaleMid-size
ChannelOther
Origin
In the early 1980s, Liu Han-Chieh felt that traditional teahouses offering only hot drinks were limited, and drew inspiration from ancient tea culture classics. He attempted to combine the Song Dynasty Diancha (whisked tea) method with modern cold beverage demands, making tea-drinking as casual as drinking coffee. He discarded traditional Kung Fu tea sets and introduced bartending cocktail shakers, rapidly cooling the tea soup and shaking up a layer of foam. This pioneered a new category of cold tea drinks and became the cradle that later nurtured bubble tea.
Milestones
1983
Startup Period: Exploration of the Cold Tea Model Turning Point
In 1983, Liu Han-Chieh opened the pioneering Yangxian Teahouse on Siwei Street in Taichung, attempting to transform Song Dynasty whisked tea culture into modern cold tea drinks. Abandoning traditional teapots for brewing, he introduced bartending cocktail shakers to hand-shake iced foamed black tea, rapidly chilling the tea soup to lock in its aroma. This marked the beginning of Taiwan's hand-shaken beverage era. However, this practice initially faced strong skepticism from traditional tea drinkers, who viewed cold tea drinks as an unorthodox heresy.
1987
Product Innovation: Birth of a Phenomenal Single Item PMF
In 1987, Chun Shui Tang store manager Lin Hsiu-Hui had the inspiration to add local tapioca balls (fenyuan) into milk tea. Recognizing immense commercial potential, Liu Han-Chieh improved the recipe and officially named it bubble tea. Driven by its unique chewy texture and cool sweetness, the product quickly ignited popularity in Taichung, becoming a must-order bestseller chosen by 80% of customers, and establishing Chun Shui Tang's industry position as the inventor of bubble tea.
1990
Expansion Period: Chain Scaling and Trademark Protection Failure
In the 1990s, Liu Han-Chieh attempted to aggressively expand Chun Shui Tang chain stores across Taiwan. However, hasty expansion led to out-of-control store management and beverage quality issues, with franchise locations frequently experiencing service problems. At the same time, his attempt to register bubble tea as a trademark failed because it had already become a generic term, leading to the emergence of numerous low-priced copycats. Losing exclusive monopoly rights, the losses incurred by the mixed business model forced the brand to contract back to a conservative strategy centered on directly-operated stores.
2000
Diversification Trial and Error: Cross-Over Hot Food and Retail Failure
In the early 2000s, seeking new growth curves, Chun Shui Tang invested heavily in developing asset-heavy hybrid formats such as tea-infused cocktails and tea meals, and even ventured into the frozen tea bag retail market. Because consumers at the time had extremely low acceptance of high-priced tea cocktails, and hot-food kitchen supply chain management proved far more difficult than expected, this diversified business suffered consecutive years of losses. Ultimately, the company had to cut most hot food and alcohol product lines to refocus on core tea drinks and light meals.
2010
Overseas Expansion: Cultural Export and Internationalization Growth
Starting in the 2010s, Chun Shui Tang actively expanded overseas, opening a branch in Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan. Featuring an exquisite oriental teahouse space design and authentic bubble tea taste, it sparked massive queues among young Japanese women, with single-store daily sales repeatedly hitting record highs. Since then, Chun Shui Tang has continued to open stores in Australia, Hong Kong, and other regions, driving a global bubble tea boom and successfully transforming the brand from a local chain teahouse into an internationally influential representative of oriental tea culture.
Turning Points
- In 1987, added tapioca balls to milk tea to create bubble tea, completing the leap from selling foamed black tea to a phenomenal bestseller.
- After the failure of chain expansion in the 1990s, decided to abandon large-scale franchising in favor of a purely direct-operated teahouse model, establishing the differentiated positioning of a humanistic teahouse.
- In the 2010s, opened the first overseas store in Tokyo, Japan. The massive queue phenomenon shattered perceptions of Taiwan's domestic hand-shaken drinks going abroad, initiating the internationalization process.
Failures & Pitfalls
- During the early introduction of iced shaken foamed black tea in 1983, it faced widespread resistance and mockery from traditional tea drinkers and peers for breaking traditional hot tea-drinking habits.
- Attempted to rapidly expand the chain footprint through franchising in the 1990s, but lost exclusive category monopoly rights due to quality control failures and the inability to trademark bubble tea.
- Blindly ventured into asset-heavy hot food fields such as tea cocktails and tea meals in the 2000s, leading to consecutive years of losses due to complex supply chains and overly high pricing, ultimately forcing the abandonment of related business lines.
关键成功要素
- Modernized traditional Song Dynasty whisked tea culture, innovating foamed black tea through cocktail shaker hand-shaking ice-chilling techniques.
- The birth of bubble tea originated from frontline employee spontaneous experimentation, which the founder keenly captured and commercialized into a signature bestseller.
- Abandoned rapid franchise expansion to坚持 (persist in) a high-ticket-average direct-operated teahouse model, using spatial experience and flavor quality control as core competitiveness.
- Used oriental tea culture export as a selling point, focusing on boutique humanistic teahouse positioning overseas to avoid destructive price wars with international budget tea drinks.
Lessons
- A category pioneer is not necessarily the category's biggest beneficiary; failing to register core category trademarks causes a brand to lose monopoly dividends and pricing power.
- Blindly scaling volume when franchise expansion and management capabilities are mismatched will not only backfire on brand reputation but also leave market space for copycats.
- Cross-over diversification requires caution; hot food and alcohol segments that deviate from core beverages often pay a heavy tuition due to excessively wide supply chain spans.
- The premium capability of cultural added value is extremely strong; through humanistic teahouse spatial packaging, small-scale direct operations can achieve high gross margins even in a red ocean.
Core Data
- 创立年份：1983 (Publicly available data)
- 珍奶首创年份：1987 (Publicly available data)
- 台湾直营门店数：56 (As of July 2025, publicly available data, independent verification unverified)
- 海外门店数：14 (Publicly available data, independent verification unverified)
- 全台年营收估约：1.5 billion NTD (Publicly available data, independent verification unverified)
- 营收单位：NTD 100 million (Publicly available data, independent verification unverified)
- 员工人数：600 (Publicly available data, independent verification unverified)
Competitors / Peers
As the pioneer of bubble tea, Chun Shui Tang faces fierce peer competition in the modern hand-shaken beverage market. Domestically in Taiwan, 50岚 and Ching Shin Fu Chuan occupy the majority of street-side takeaway markets with massive scale advantages; trendy-flavor-focused ChaPanda (Tea's Melody), as well as high-end positioned Gong Cha and DaYiZeng, also carve up customer sources within segmented markets. In overseas markets, Gong Cha's explosive store openings after being introduced by a Korean enterprise, alongside Mixue Bingcheng sweeping Southeast Asia with extreme low pricing, represent late-arriving emerging brands that far surpass Chun Shui Tang in store scale and international brand awareness despite the latter's adherence to high-end direct operations.