Luckin's National Day Cup Sales Top 100 Million; Peet's Parent Names New CEO

Things about the holiday

The National Day golden week clearly amplified tea-and-coffee demand at scenic spots, transit hubs and popular business districts, with multiple brands reporting sales and revenue growth.

Luckin’s National Day 7-day cup volume surpassed 100 million cups, averaging about 14.29 million cups/day; Sexy Tea’s 7-day holiday revenue grew about 60% versus the 7 days before the holiday; Grandpa Doesn’t Brew Tea’s dine-in orders rose 9.89% YoY, with about 2.6 million people walking into offline stores and lychee ice-brew sales nearing 1 million cups.

Chabaidao scenic-store holiday sales approached three times a normal day, with some stores selling over 2,000 cups/day; Sweet Lala some scenic stores’ weekly sales rose over 669% sequentially, and its super-thick taro series has sold over 1.5 million cups since launch.

Jasmine Milk White’s omni-channel sales and revenue hit a record high for the period. The classic Jasmine Milk White led sales; the new “Magnolia and Persimmon” sold over 310,000 cups cumulatively, entering the top ten across all categories.

Nayuki some popular stores’ holiday daily sales approached nine times a normal day; some stores’ single-day cup output exceeded 3,000; Chagee some stores’ holiday average daily sales rose over 3x versus pre-holiday, and the 19 regional limited-edition series returning on September 30 at one point accounted for nearly 40% of cups at some stores.

Things about stores

Over the past week, tea-and-coffee brands kept filling regional gaps. Qucha Mountain’s Beijing first store began trial operation; Sexy Tea and Good Morning Lemon’s Guangzhou first stores opened; Chuntian Aged Tea’s first entry into Guangdong saw five stores open successively.

Notably, during the holiday Starbucks made its first entry into Xinjiang; after the store opened, John Moolenaar, chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China, publicly demanded Starbucks close the local store, sparking overseas discussion.

Meanwhile, Geming drew attention twice recently over rumors of a first-tier-city layout. On the Chongming Zhongying Guangfuli opening list in Shanghai, Geming told Chacha Observer it has always watched the Shanghai market; on a Beijing Tongzhou Wanda “key-account sales manager” recruitment that sparked layout speculation, Geming said it currently has no Beijing store plan, and the role is merely a channel-type hire unrelated to store preparation.

Overseas, tea-and-coffee brands accelerated entry into Europe, America and Southeast Asia. HeyTea entered Thailand for the first time; M Stand entered Indonesia for the first time; Cotti opened one store each in Australia, the Philippines and Germany; Ice & Snow Time’s U.S. first store landed in Davis, California; Chabaidao opened its Louvre store in Paris; Yulian Tea House’s New York hoarding is up; Moxyogurt’s New York first store began trial operation and its fourth Singapore store will open.

Image / Xiaohongshu @Miiix Coffee HQ

Beyond store expansion, some brands began disclosing single-store operating data. Miiix Coffee has passed 100 stores; its Jing’an Temple first store became an Ele.me single-platform ten-thousand-order store three months after opening, and six months later a 15-sqm shop’s monthly net revenue exceeded 270,000 yuan; core Yangtze-Delta stores average over 500 cups/day. Tea brand Matcha Wang’s stores average steady daily footfall of 900–1,200, and a single product launched under five months has sold over 20,000 cups, supporting 70% of store revenue.

Regional franchise operating investment grew; a tea brand uses special funds to support store expansion and renewal. Ningji has invested over 4 million yuan in Hubei since 2026, an estimated 12 million for the full year — about 70% for new-store subsidies and brand marketing, 30% for old-store renewal and standard building. Currently Ningji has over 250 Hubei stores, cumulative sales over 700 million yuan, over 40 million cups sold, with a renewal rate of 95%.

Things about products

Early October, the tea-and-coffee industry launched new items around taro and persimmon.

Sweet Lala launched super-thick taro milk green, super-thick taro grand-slam and super-thick taro family; CoCo launched double-fresh taro milk green and super-loaded double-fresh taro milk green; Jasmine Milk White launched the Magnolia and Persimmon series; Moxyogurt launched the molten-persimmon series; Li Ruotao launched the golden-autumn persimmon series.

Beyond seasonal flavors, some brands kept widening the menu boundary, with desserts, alcoholic drinks and snacks becoming new directions. Geming launched a new dessert, peach-resin tapioca stewed milk; HeyTea limited-launched an old-Guangzhou fresh tofu-skin soy-milk cake; Pull-Tab Coffee launched frozen-lock-fresh bread. Chabaidao launched six special cocktails at its world-first tea-and-wine handcraft space, with a “drinker’s set” of five drinks plus a random snack.

Image / Xiaohongshu @dy.

Cotti sells freshly tapped beer and freshly fried snacks in Ningde — beers in four flavors (German wheat, Belgian wheat, passion-fruit beer, pomelo fruit beer) and fried items including fries, chicken nuggets, crispy pork, shiitake tempura, onion rings and a fried-platter.

Tea-and-coffee brands aim to create freshness and a reason to visit through new launches, while also using alcohol, fried food and other categories to extend operating hours and raise store time-utilization and floor efficiency.

While new products keep increasing, some brands began doing subtraction. A Xiaohongshu netizen “Tea Friend Watching Tea” revealed that Chagee will cull off-season products based on seasonal change and consumption data, delisting nearly 20 items — 14 like Xingchunshan, Xingshi Chunshan, Xiameng Meilong on September 29, then five more including Qingmo Apple and Lotus on October 20.

Product pricing and bring-your-own-cup rules also drew attention. A Qingdao Houhai coffee shop sells only Americano and latte; bring-your-own-cup Americano is 0.52 yuan, latte 3.52 yuan, and not bringing one adds 0.50 yuan. The store uses a hand-cranked well-type coffee machine, averaging four minutes per cup, with a one-cup-per-person limit and no takeout.

Another blogger brought a MUJI cup to MANNER for coffee and was told next time the 5-yuan discount wouldn’t apply, on grounds the material must be PP5 or above while the cup was “PPP” material; netizens then pointed out the cup was actually labeled Tritan, not the so-called “PPP.”

Brands kept ramping up IP collaborations, but the playbook began extending from mere co-branded packaging to themed stores and offline installations. Little Coffee teamed with “Non-Human” for a themed café; orders at all stores nationwide rose 40% on launch day, with some stores’ GMV up 800%.

Image / Xiaohongshu user

Mixue’s Snow King IP large merchandise sparked offline discussion; during the holiday its Kunming flagship displayed a Snow King electric bike with Snow King elements across the body, prompting netizens to ask how to get one and debate its turn-head rate and theft-proofing.

Product innovation also extended upstream to raw materials — even coffee extraction water got its own development. Guizhou Feilongyu Industrial Group released “ZERO · The 0th Flavor,” a water product developed for specialty-coffee extraction scenarios; the brand says it targets the affordable specialty-coffee water market.

Among them, the mellow version uses a 1:2.7 calcium-magnesium ratio, suited to medium-dark roasts and specialty cafés; the bright version works with pour-over, espresso and cold brew, highlighting light-roast fruit acidity and floral notes, suited to everyday mass-market use.

Things about people

On September 29, Luckin announced Bao Yifei had been appointed a director. After appointment, the board comprises 10 directors including 3 independent ones. Bao is Mubadala’s China private-equity investment director and previously worked in private equity and investment banking in London.

This personnel change relates to Mubadala’s earlier investment in Luckin. On September 10, Mubadala announced it would join Luckin controlling shareholder Centurium Capital in a roughly $1 billion transaction, taking an important minority stake and board nomination rights.

Another coffee giant also named a new helmsman.

After acquiring JDE Peet’s (parent of Peet’s Coffee), Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) is building management for the future independent coffee company. Recently KDP’s board announced Russ Torres would become CEO of the future Global Coffee Co., joining the company on November 3.

Torres has about 30 years of consumer-goods management experience and is currently president and COO of Kimberly-Clark, overseeing business in over 30 countries and regions. After joining KDP, before Global Coffee Co. completes its spin-off, he will first serve as CEO of KDP’s coffee business unit and lead the integration of KDP and JDE Peet’s coffee operations, reporting to KDP CEO Tim Cofer.

Notably, JDE Peet’s former CEO Rafael Oliveira had once been named future CEO of Global Coffee Co., but then moved to become Heineken CEO, reopenning the global search. KDP board chair Pamela Patsley said Torres was chosen after a worldwide screening.

Things about money

A tea brand launched an equity-incentive policy, tying talent and shareholder interests. Mixue, under its H-share reward plan, granted a total of 12,023,300 awards to 1,234 employees, corresponding to the same number of new H-shares, about 3.17% of total issued shares.

Grantees must buy the award shares at HK$18.47 each; the closing H-share price on grant day was HK$184.70. Awards vest in batches over about 36 months, with the first vesting at least 12 months out and no performance target.

Also, Starbucks’ franchise rights in seven Asian markets will change.

On September 30, DFI Retail Group and Hong Kong Food Limited reached a conditional agreement. DFI will exit its 50% stake in Maxim’s, bought back by Maxim’s; as part of the restructuring, DFI will take over all of Maxim’s Coffee Concepts interests — covering Starbucks franchise operations in seven markets (Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos) with over 1,100 stores — and receive about $340 million cash consideration. The deal is expected to complete by end-Q1 2027.

After completion, Hong Kong Food Limited will become Maxim’s sole shareholder; Starbucks franchise operations and Maxim’s daily operations are expected to remain unchanged, and the parties will continue cooperating in procurement, supply chain, property and digitalization.

Source: The Paper · Paike, produced by Chacha Observer; Author / Lei Jun; Editor / Meng Jiayi

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