Price war combined with takeaway subsidies, boutique coffee Seesaw falls into two rounds of coffee wars
The first batch of boutique chain coffee brands that were dragged down by the coffee price war emerged. Recently, according to the Qichacha platform, Seesaw Coffee, a former internet celebrity boutique coffee brand, has entered the bankruptcy liquidation process. In the industry's view, after two rounds of coffee price wars, the development of specialty coffee is under pressure and needs to find differentiated competitive points again.
Seesaw bankruptcy liquidation
The reporter noticed that Seesaw's operating entity, Shanghai Xishe Coffee Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Xishe Coffee"), has added multiple bankruptcy review cases. On February 28th and March 10th of this year, Shanghai Malu Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Malu Industrial") and Shanghai Liuli Workshop Liuli Art Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Liuli Workshop") successively applied to the court for bankruptcy liquidation of Shanghai Xishe Coffee, citing its inability to repay its due debts and obvious lack of solvency.
On March 11th, the court ruled to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Shanghai Xishe Coffee and designated the Shanghai branch of Beijing Tongshang Law Firm as the administrator of Shanghai Xishe Coffee after the lottery. The first creditors' meeting was held on April 23rd.
According to data from Qichacha, as of now, Shanghai Xishe Coffee has been involved in 107 judicial cases, with over 50 new cases added by 2025. The reporter noticed that these cases mainly involve supplier contract disputes, debt recovery, and even loan disputes between founder Wu Xiaomei and banks, small loan companies, etc. The total amount involved in incomplete statistics exceeds 20 million yuan.
Seesaw Coffee was founded in 2012 and is one of the earliest boutique coffee chain brands in China. With its new tea drink style coffee products and unique store style, Seesaw became one of the first chain coffee brands to receive financing in 2017, and in 2021 and 2022, it received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series A+financing from multiple institutions including Heytea, Cornerstone Capital, and Black Ant Capital, owning nearly 200 stores at once.
However, starting from the second half of 2023, the fundamentals of Seesaw in the market have become less optimistic, and it has also initiated a round of store closure adjustments, starting to retreat to its roots in the East China region and key first and second tier cities. Starting from the second half of 2024, there have been multiple reports of Seesaw owing wages and payments to suppliers, and founder Wu Xiaomei has also been temporarily restricted from consumption.
A creditor told reporters today that Seesaw has been in arrears with his payment since the end of 2023. After multiple attempts to recover, Seesaw's repayment plan has not been executed as scheduled, so they ultimately sued him in court. However, they have not yet received the outstanding payment. And there was no further information disclosed about the first creditors' meeting. The reporter asked some Seesaw investors on the same day, but as of the time of writing, no further response has been received.
Beijing Tongshang Law Firm Shanghai Branch responded to First Financial that the bankruptcy liquidation of Xishe Coffee is still underway, and it is not convenient to disclose whether there will be a restructuring party and other follow-up developments.
Fine coffee urgently needs to find its way
Wang Zhendong, Chairman of Shanghai Feiyue Investment Management Co., Ltd., once said in an interview with First Financial that Seesaw Coffee's problems reflect the increasingly difficult path for chain specialty coffee under the impact of fast coffee.
Starting from May 2023, fast coffee brands have launched a round of price wars and franchise based store expansion wars in the Chinese freshly made chain coffee market. Starting from Kudi's 9.9 yuan coffee, major coffee brands such as Luckin Coffee have followed suit, and the number of stores for each fast coffee brand has also increased significantly. In 2025, the price war of fast coffee has just cooled down, and the subsidy war of food delivery platforms has brought a new round of coffee price war.
More importantly, the expansion of this round of fast coffee is not simply a low price competition. In response to the taste characteristics of Chinese consumers who prefer sweetness and dislike bitterness and sourness, fast coffee brands have quickly opened up the situation through product innovation in the form of milk tea, with the help of better taste and active marketing strategies.
In the industry's view, these two rounds of coffee wars have driven further expansion of coffee consumption in China, but fast coffee brands have benefited more. Taking Luckin Coffee as an example, as of March 31, 2026, the total number of Luckin Coffee stores has reached 33596, and the cup volume has increased from 18 million in 2018 to 4.1 billion in 2025, with both incremental and stock redistribution.
From the market situation, the performance of coffee shops that focus on third space and boutique coffee has been affected to varying degrees. Taking Tims Tianhao China, which entered the Chinese market at the same time as the rise of fast coffee brands, as an example, its performance shows that its annual revenue in 2025 was 1.32 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%, with a net loss of 440 million yuan, which has also expanded year-on-year, and store growth is slowing down. Prior to 2023, Tianhao China's performance and store expansion maintained a high growth trend, but 2023 also became a turning point for its performance.
In previous market visits, the reporter learned that some coffee practitioners feel confused about the impact of fast coffee, and the industry is also exploring the future development model of specialty coffee, trying to establish more obvious differences with fast coffee brands.
Zhan Junhao, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, stated in an interview with First Financial reporters that the price war of fast coffee has dealt a significant blow to the survival space of boutique coffee. Seesaw's exit confirms that the "high price heavy experience" model is difficult to compete with the "low price scale" competition. But the market segmentation is obvious, and there are still opportunities for premium coffee. We need to give up blind expansion, focus on the origin, roasting, and spatial experience, avoid direct competition with differentiation, and lock in niche customers who pursue quality.
Author: Luan Li
Source: First Financial