Chagee

Chagee (霸王茶姬) is a premium Chinese tea drink brand founded in 2017, built on the philosophy of bringing authentic Chinese original-leaf tea to a global audience. Unlike the heavy milk-tea style that defined the earlier wave of boba shops, Chagee puts the tea leaf front and center — its signature drinks are built on single-origin tea bases such as Oolong, Jasmine Green, and Pu-erh, lightly layered with fresh milk rather than non-dairy creamer.

The brand's breakout drink in the US is the Osmanthus Oolong Latte, a floral, lightly sweet latte that has become one of the most searched Chinese tea drinks on Google Trends, with US search interest growing more than 5,000% year-over-year as the brand opened its first American locations. Chagee positions itself in the premium segment, with most large-cup drinks priced between $5.50 and $7.00, comparable to specialty coffee rather than traditional boba.

Chagee is currently in the early stages of its US expansion, with its first stores concentrated in high-density Asian-American communities in California. The brand is part of a broader Chinese tea-drink export wave alongside Heytea and Mixue, and is widely seen as the premium benchmark of that category. Its menu is compact and tea-forward, focusing on a few well-executed signature drinks rather than the hundreds of SKUs common at older boba chains. Updated pricing and store counts should be verified at the location level, as the US menu and availability are still evolving.