This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on June 21, 2022.
On June 21, 2022, Heytea increased its exposure to the Minority Coffee team by taking a 12% stake in Minority Coffee. The prior year, Heytea had already invested in YePlant, a plant-based beverage brand founded by Minority Coffee founder Wu Lingbo.
Minority Coffee operates offline coffee shops under FEW, a coffee-bean brand called Torch Coffee, and its own coffee roasting facility.
Minority Coffee has described coffee as a non-essential product that becomes part of daily life only after consumers learn to love it. Its original idea was simple: good coffee should come in good-looking packaging.
When asked by investors about its vision, the team has pushed back on the idea that coffee is a business built to “change the world.” Its framing is more sensory and experience-led: coffee provides taste, aroma, and visual pleasure, and sells a form of habit or addiction.
The company sees itself as part of China’s specialty coffee wave that began around 2012, a period that drew investment funds that had previously focused on the IT sector into coffee formats and coffee-brand deployment.
Before this Minority Coffee investment, Heytea had invested in Seesaw Coffee. Heytea founder Nie Yunchen also personally invested in two coffee brands: THE RAVEN and KUDDO Coffee.
According to the article, Nie was the controlling major shareholder of THE RAVEN, which had only three stores. KUDDO Coffee also had only a few stores, with Nie holding a 15% stake.
The article compares four coffee brands connected to Heytea or Nie Yunchen:
1. Seesaw Coffee
Seesaw Coffee was founded by the couple Zong Xinkuang and Wu Xiaomei. Their founding idea was that a better life should be shared with more people, and good coffee should be accessible to more consumers.
Seesaw opened its first store in 2012 and was among China’s earliest specialty coffee chains. After more than ten years of development, its store count was still not especially large.
In 2013, Seesaw created one of China’s earliest coffee academies, focused on barista training, coffee standards, and coffee-culture education. This earned it the industry nickname of a “Whampoa Military Academy” for Chinese coffee.
2. Minority Coffee
Founder Wu Lingbo was the 2014 China champion of the World Cup Tasters Championship. Former head roaster Chen Shenghao was the 2019 China champion of the World Coffee Roasting Championship and placed sixth globally, then China’s best result in that world competition.
Beyond competition credentials, the article highlights the product and design quality of Minority Coffee’s brands including Torch Coffee and FEW.
3. THE RAVEN
THE RAVEN was founded by Hu Yidao, known as “Dao Shu.” The brand name comes from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1844 poem “The Raven.”
Hu had previously created a community coffee brand called Beginner Coffee, named after Raymond Carver’s short story “Beginners.” That brand had already closed by the time of the article.
THE RAVEN also held poetry competitions. Although it had only three stores, Heytea founder Nie Yunchen acquired the brand. The article presents it as a more poetic counterpoint to Shenzhen’s reputation as a purely commercial city.
4. KUDDO Coffee
KUDDO Coffee was founded by STacci from Xiamen, an independent musician before opening the cafe. She had also worked in film, music media, and event planning.
KUDDO was created with Rycho and Kim. Rycho, STacci’s husband, had worked at Tencent and took on store management. Kim, with eight years of barista experience, became chief barista.
The brand name comes from Detective Conan: “Kuddo” refers to the Japanese pronunciation of Kudo in Shinichi Kudo. KUDDO’s primary color was a green mixed by STacci herself, widely described as “avocado green,” with gray-white as a supporting color.
KUDDO was founded in Shekou in August 2019. Its first site was a 15-square-meter container. At the time of the article, it had six operating stores.
Among the four brands, Seesaw Coffee and Minority Coffee were investments made through Heytea as a company. THE RAVEN and KUDDO Coffee were personal investments by founder Nie Yunchen.
The article frames Seesaw and Minority Coffee as brands with some operating maturity, though not yet very large. THE RAVEN and KUDDO Coffee were described as much earlier-stage projects, closer to angel-style backing.
The article argues that many financial investors would be cautious about backing coffee world champions or artist-like founders because of concerns over scale and whether such companies can become large businesses.
Heytea’s coffee-related investments, by contrast, appear to lean toward world-champion or artist-led brands. The article compares this style to the Medici family during the European Renaissance.
It also notes that, based on THE RAVEN trademark registration transfers, Heytea founder Nie Yunchen had established an overseas BVI company called Nie-style Investment, with THE RAVEN’s brand ownership placed inside that vehicle.
The article uses the Medici comparison to suggest an investment approach that values creative space, brand character, and cultural influence, not only financial return. It argues that this type of backing requires respect for founder individuality and a willingness to give creators room to explore.
At the time, Heytea’s pattern appeared split: more mature coffee companies such as Seesaw Coffee and Minority Coffee were held through corporate investment, while very early-stage brands such as THE RAVEN and KUDDO Coffee were backed personally by the founder.
The possible outcome, according to the article, is a more diverse ecosystem around Heytea’s areas of interest: even if Heytea itself were someday to decline, the invested brands and their cultural traits might continue.
Note: all stake, ownership, and investment details are historical figures from the June 21, 2022 source article.