Milk Tea or Coffee: Chinese Young People’s Beverage Choices Are Becoming More Complex

Around office buildings in China at lunchtime, it is common to see two similar queues. One waits for coffee, and the other for freshly made tea drinks. Someone may use an iced Americano to wake up in the morning, then order a fruit tea with colleagues in the afternoon. Here, coffee and milk tea are not cultural choices that replace one another; they have entered different parts of daily life.

In the past, foreign readers often understood China’s beverage market as “traditional tea culture meeting Western coffee.” Today, that picture is too simple. Local brands have redesigned the milk tea Chinese young people drink, while coffee has been adapted to local tastes, prices, and delivery habits. The two sides have even begun borrowing ingredients from one another.

Milk Tea Is More Like a Dessert You Can Drink

China’s “new-style tea drinks” are usually based on freshly brewed tea, with fresh milk, fruit, milk foam, or toppings added. Customers can choose sugar level, ice level, and toppings, and the same drink can be adjusted to personal preferences. The buying process itself carries a sense of participation.

Milk tea is often linked to social settings. Colleagues place orders together in the afternoon, friends each hold a cup while shopping, and new collaboration products become conversation topics. Beyond quenching thirst, it is also like a small reward with a relatively controllable price.

Different brands cover a wide price range. Low-priced chains sell drinks at prices close to ordinary bottled beverages, while premium brands emphasize tea leaves, fresh milk, space, and design. Consumers can buy frequently, or treat a particular drink as a weekend experience.

Coffee First Became a Weekday Tool

The expansion of coffee in Chinese cities has largely come from the clear use of “needing to stay awake.” Office buildings, universities, and transport hubs provide stable demand. Mobile ordering and delivery mean that consumers do not have to sit in a café; a cup of coffee can arrive at the office before a meeting.

Local chains have lowered prices through coupons and small-store models. Coffee no longer belongs only to quiet, high-end spaces; it can also be a functional drink bought every day. By 2025, China’s leading coffee chains already had tens of thousands of stores, and price competition had brought freshly ground coffee to more cities.

Tastes have also been localized. Coconut lattes, fruit-flavored coffee, and tea-coffee mixed products lower the threshold of bitterness in black coffee. Consumers may first enjoy a sweet latte and only gradually try simpler coffee later.

The Two Industries Are Learning From Each Other

Tea-drink brands are learning from coffee chains’ breakfast and weekday consumption, while coffee brands keep launching fruit- and dairy-based drinks and seasonal limited editions. Both sides rely on mobile ordering, member coupons, collaborations, and rapid product launches.

Store formats are also becoming increasingly similar. Many stores are not large and mainly serve takeaway and delivery; larger stores in shopping malls are responsible for brand image. For consumers, which drink they choose often depends on whether they want to wake up, satisfy a craving, socialize, or take photos at that moment, rather than loyalty to a particular culture.

Price wars make drinks easy to buy, but also create the problem of products being updated too quickly. Brands may launch a large number of new products in a year, and popular flavors are quickly copied by competitors. Consumers gain more choices, while stores and franchisees have to bear pressure from promotions, ingredients, and inventory.

Young People Have Not Stopped Drinking Traditional Tea

The popularity of freshly made tea drinks does not mean that Chinese young people no longer drink ordinary tea leaves. Hot tea remains common in homes, offices, and restaurants. The change is that tea has expanded into more forms: cold-brewed tea, fruit tea, fresh-milk tea made with whole tea leaves, and unsweetened ready-to-drink tea all bring traditional flavors into new settings.

Coffee has not turned China into a market that drinks coffee entirely in a European or American way either. There is still room for per-capita consumption to grow, and many people are flexible about both how often they drink coffee and what they like. A latte today and lemon tea tomorrow do not require an identity choice.

Chinese young people’s beverage choices are becoming more complex because brands have made drinks part of how time is arranged. Mornings call for efficiency, afternoons invite relaxing with colleagues, and weekends allow for trying new flavors. Tea and coffee have both remained; each has simply found more moments in which to appear.

References

- Luckin Coffee 2025 Annual Report (Luckin Coffee, 2026) - MIXUE Group Annual Report 2025 (Hong Kong Stock Exchange, 2026) - CHAGEE Holdings 2025 Annual Report (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2026) - How coffee and milk tea are winning China's emerging-tier cities (Daxue Consulting, 2025)