HEYTEA: From Disruptive Market Entrant to Scalability Challenges in China's Premium Tea Beverage Sector

In recent years, the market scale of China's new-style tea beverage sector has surged to nearly 30 billion yuan, with dividends from capital and Internet traffic undergoing superimposition. However, since 2022, the track has suddenly cooled down, and the financing events have dropped by 80%. In this study, HEYTEA is selected as a case study to examine its evolution from a regional tea beverage brand to a national industry benchmark, while further analyzing its performance in scale expansion, which has encountered a growth bottleneck in recent years. Through case analysis and second-hand data such as annual reports and industry reports, its successful experience in product innovation, pricing strategy and digital marketing is analyzed. It is found that the rapid expansion of Xicha causes systemic risks, which are manifested in the out-of-focus supply chain management, the reduction of employee training cycle, which leads to the decline of service quality, and the poor profitability and high store closure rate of franchise stores. Brands need to establish a balance mechanism between scale expansion and quality control. This study provides a theoretical framework and practical guidance for the tea industry to deal with similar challenges by analyzing the case of tea-loving.