This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on July 5, 2022.
According to BBB Research Institute, bubble tea’s push into Europe can be traced through the rise, setback and re-emergence of chains such as BoBoQ, Comebuy, Gong Cha, Chatime, The Alley, Yi Fang, Happy Lemon and Coco. The story is less about a single beverage trend than about how Asian drink brands learned to educate consumers, manage food-safety perception and build operating models across a fragmented region.
In December 2012, 16 days before Christmas Eve, bubble tea brand BoBoQ entered Leicester Square in London’s West End.
The opening ceremony began at 2 p.m. The site was described as the largest bubble tea restaurant in the UK at the time, and BoBoQ’s 108th chain store in Europe.
For founder Zhu Guiman and Germany general manager Lai Mingjin, it became a defining moment. BoBoQ had already played an important role in bringing bubble tea into Europe at scale, while also witnessing the category’s later period of misunderstanding and reputational damage.
By the early 2020s, a new wave of tea chains and independent stores had begun to gain ground in Europe. Brands including Comebuy, Gong Cha, Chatime, The Alley and Yi Fang helped renew interest in the category. In July 2020, French fashion magazine Marie Claire wrote that bubble tea had quietly captured Paris.
Lai Mingjin arrived in Berlin in 1984 and often missed the bubble tea of his hometown. But Europe was, and remains, a coffee-dominant market.
According to the International Coffee Organization data cited in the source article, Europe consumed 54.35 million bags of coffee in 2020, accounting for 33% of global consumption. Asia and Oceania together consumed 36.5 million bags, or 22%.
Euromonitor’s 2013 ranking of coffee-consuming countries by annual per-capita coffee-bean consumption also showed the strength of European coffee culture. Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany and Austria were among the top 10. Brazil, the only non-European and non-South American country cited in that section, ranked tenth at 1.32 cups per person per day, half of Finland’s 2.64 cups and 0.1 cup below Germany, where the first coffeehouse appeared in 1673.
That context made dedicated bubble tea stores rare. Some were located in Chinatowns; others appeared only as side items on Chinese restaurant menus. In 2010, BoBoQ opened Germany’s first store focused specifically on bubble tea.
Zhu Guiman recalled that the store sold only 15 cups on its February 18 opening day, mostly to young customers. German consumers were curious but uncertain, especially about tapioca pearls: should they be swallowed or spat out?
BoBoQ responded with in-store graphics explaining how to drink bubble tea. It also adapted products for European preferences, using yogurt and juice smoothies as bases and sometimes replacing tapioca pearls with jelly-based fruit pearls.
By August 2012, BoBoQ had more than 100 stores across Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. By the end of 2012, the total number of bubble tea stores in Germany had reportedly risen to 1,300.
France saw similar early momentum. Also in 2010, Chen Jieyuan, an art student in Paris, launched a food brand that used bubble tea as its featured drink. Paris consumers, already familiar with afternoon tea culture, began accepting a milk-forward drink with chewy pearls.
The UK had a different starting point. According to the Tea and Infusions Organisation cited in the source, the UK consumes 60 billion cups of tea per year, equal to 900 cups per person annually, or nearly three cups per day. Milk tea was already part of everyday culture.
The source also notes that tea drinking in the UK carries social signals. Anthropologist Kate Fox’s Watching the English is cited for observations about unsweetened black tea, milk, sugar and class identity. A YouGov survey cited in the article found that most British respondents believed tea should be poured before milk.
Against that background, BoBoQ’s arrival in Leicester Square had a receptive audience.
For early operators of Chinese-style bubble tea in Europe, BoBoQ’s UK opening also mattered because the category was still recovering from a food-safety scare.
Around August 2012, Germany’s Rheinische Post reported that a technical university laboratory and an equipment-testing company had tested drinks from bubble tea shops in Moenchengladbach and found styrene, acetophenone and other carcinogenic substances. German media followed the story, and bubble tea’s reputation fell sharply.
After a lengthy investigation, BoBoQ and other Chinese bubble tea operators were reportedly cleared, with no problem found in their raw materials. But the damage was severe. Nearly half of Germany’s bubble tea stores closed after the incident, and overall industry sales fell by about 70%.
The renewed popularity of bubble tea in the UK therefore became a source of confidence for operators. But Zhu Guiman and Lai Mingjin became more cautious. They accepted fewer media interviews and paid closer attention to food quality and safety in stores.
Around 2015, China’s milk tea sector began upgrading into what became known as new-style tea. Brands such as Heytea and Nayuki helped popularize cheese foam tea and fruit tea, setting new standards around ingredient upgrades and freshly made drinks.
Top-tier brands remained cautious internationally. Seven years later, the article noted that Heytea and Nayuki were still careful about overseas expansion. Nayuki had closed in Japan, Heytea’s US stores had not yet arrived, and both were making limited trials in markets such as Singapore, where Chinese communities are relatively concentrated.
That created openings for brands from the earlier wave and newer challengers that had not yet become dominant.
In London, between 2016 and 2017, Happy Lemon and Coco both opened their first stores in the UK and Europe. Less than a year later, Happy Lemon opened a second UK store in Birmingham. Like its London site, the Birmingham store was placed prominently in Chinatown.
Germany, BoBoQ’s original European base, saw a second bubble tea wave around 2019. Earlier players such as Comebuy and Teamate became more visible, while later entrants such as Chatime and The Alley also gained traction.
In Paris, new-style tea brands also found demand. The Alley became known for brown sugar milk tea, while Yi Fang gained attention for fruit tea. A store called Laizuo segmented sugar and ice levels and introduced visually appealing wagashi-style products.
On TikTok and YouTube, European bubble tea review videos became informal education spaces. Viewers asked about the color, texture and flavor of pearls, and about toppings such as grass jelly, pudding and jelly. Asian consumers familiar with the category often stepped in to explain.
By then, bubble tea had spread across Milan, Rome, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Cannes, Belgium and Austria.
The article argues that Europe’s enthusiasm should not obscure the operating risks. BoBoQ’s experience showed how quickly food-safety concerns and public misunderstanding could damage a young category.
Current European distribution remains shaped by Chinese and Asian communities. Germany, the UK and France are major destinations partly because of their larger Chinese populations.
Happy Lemon’s London and Birmingham stores were both placed in highly visible Chinatown locations. In London’s Chinatown, spanning streets including Gerrard Street, Lisle Street and Macclesfield Street, the article counted more than 15 bubble tea stores, including Royaltea, Xing Fu Tang, Coco, Happy Lemon, Yi Fang, Wuye, Meet Fresh, Chatime, Min Tea, Xian Cha Dao, Xiaoquecha and Machi Machi.
Even in Germany, where the category was already relatively widespread, stores tended to concentrate in major cities with denser Chinese populations. Comebuy and BoBoQ had roughly one-third or half of their stores in Berlin, while Teamate focused mainly on Duesseldorf.
The strategic takeaway in the source article is that overseas bubble tea brands should first capture the core Chinese consumer base, then work toward broader local adoption.
For a brand trying to penetrate one country deeply, rapid nationwide store openings may not be wise. Chinese populations can be dispersed nationally but concentrated within specific cities. The article argues that an early “one city, one store” approach can quickly lock in demand.
Chatime’s UK expansion was presented as an example. Beyond 10 stores in London, its website listed stores in Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Southampton, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford, Leicester, Norwich, Sheffield, Portsmouth, Leeds, Lancaster, Milton Keynes, Glasgow, Bristol, York, Lincoln, Bridgton, Cardiff and Belfast. In the early phase, each city had only one store.
The article also notes that Happy Lemon had already entered Birmingham early, while Chatime initially avoided Birmingham, reducing direct competition.
European expansion also brings country-by-country uncertainty. Different EU regions may have different requirements for food safety and ingredient labeling. Operators must also comply with local rules on fire-control facilities, drainage systems, store setup and employee working hours.
Risk control became especially important after the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, several EU countries, including France, implemented dine-in restrictions. Bubble tea stores in city centers or near tourist areas faced a specific problem: loyal consumers often lived too far away for delivery, while office workers and tourists disappeared because of remote work and weak tourism.
Some first-wave players responded by shifting emphasis upstream. BoBoQ retained several offline drink stores but focused more energy on the supply chain. The article states that BoBoQ had become Europe’s largest bubble tea raw-material supplier, meeting about 75% of supply-chain demand.
Possmei, originally a pearl supplier to BoBoQ, entered Europe in 2015 through a general distributor. The brand established a warehouse and office in Hamburg, Germany, providing consulting, training and equipment support to new entrants in the bubble tea industry.
The source article argues that localization of taste may have been difficult in the past, but the global rise of new-style tea could turn Chinese beverage brands into trend-setters rather than followers. Cheese tea and fresh-cut fruit tea increased the standing of Chinese-style tea drinks in global food circulation.
At the same time, the article warns that if bubble tea is the only Chinese foodservice category to create a global wave, that would still be far from enough.
Whether in Europe or worldwide, the expansion of bubble tea is presented as a long campaign rather than a quick win.
Note: Market-entry advice and forward-looking judgments are historical, reflecting the article’s July 5, 2022 context.