This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on July 25, 2022.
This adaptation is based on reporting by BBB Research Institute, which traced how Chinese-style bubble tea moved from a niche expat comfort drink into a competitive foodservice category in Dubai and Doha.
In 2019, eighth-grade student Sahana Hareesh tried her first bubble tea while vacationing in Bali, Indonesia. Her younger brother wanted a chocolate milkshake and was surprised to find pearls even in a roadside-stall version. After returning to Doha, Sahana began looking for bubble tea across the city. She liked winter-melon milk tea and brown-sugar pearl milk tea, but Doha still had far fewer outlets than Indonesia.
The Middle East has a long relationship with sweetness. Arab communities were among the earliest groups skilled in refining cane sugar, and sweetened milk tea became part of a wider regional preference for sugar. The article also notes older cultural references to sugarcane in One Thousand and One Nights and cites Anissa Helou's Sweet Middle East on how sweets and milk tea offered pleasure in societies where some Muslims did not drink alcohol.
Doha saw its first bubble-tea shop in 2012, when Imtiaz Dawood returned from Canada and introduced local consumers to Chinese-style pearl milk tea. One year later, about 650 kilometers away in Dubai, a venue called Week 8 Milk Tea Dessert House opened as a Chinese youth-oriented social and leisure bar.
Over the following decade, terms such as bubble tea, Chinese milk tea, and cheese foam tea became familiar across parts of the Middle East. Stores also evolved from simple drink counters into social spaces and lifestyle venues.
A key driver was migration. Over the previous two decades, hundreds of thousands of Chinese people had moved to the United Arab Emirates and the broader Middle East, supported by policy tailwinds and more frequent regional exchange. For many of them, milk tea carried both hometown flavor and the emotional texture of working abroad.
Dubai in the late 1990s looked very different from today's global city. It did not yet have the Burj Khalifa or the sail-shaped luxury hotel. Before 2004, bilateral trade between China and the UAE was only USD 1 billion. By comparison, China's Ministry of Commerce reported that China-U.S. bilateral trade reached USD 231.42 billion in 2004.
A turning point came in 2002, when Wu Yi visited Dubai. The Dubai government offered China a 150,000-square-meter warehouse in a free-trade zone, rent-free for three years. Two years later, Dubai World and Chinese partners helped create Dragon City, a Chinatown-style commercial district covering more than 300,000 square meters and planned for as many as 4,000 shops. International City, built to support the commercial zone, became the first Dubai stop for many Chinese residents.
Chinese historian Han Qing'an wrote in Yokohama Chinatown that Chinatowns worldwide often depended on three trades: cooks, tailors, and barbers. Foodservice was the economic anchor. International City followed a similar pattern: Mandarin-speaking customers could get by easily, and Cantonese, Sichuan, seafood barbecue, and halal restaurants created a base for milk-tea operators.
Around 2012, Sharetea and Chatime entered Dubai almost simultaneously. Former Emirates flight attendant Jiao Yan from Nanjing, Jiangsu, said she had been in Dubai for more than a year and felt she could not live without milk tea, so she became Sharetea's Middle East agent. Around 2011 to 2012, Jateen Jaduram also secured Dubai agency rights for Chatime. With years in the food industry, he saw the local Chinese population rising and believed Asian drinks had strong potential.
Week 8 Milk Tea Dessert House, opened in 2013, became a landmark for the category. According to Mao Yiming's account of Chinese foodservice development in International City, Dubai milk-tea shops shifted from narrow grab-and-go formats toward larger business and social spaces. Young Chinese customers treated these shops as discreet venues for dates and parties.
But profitability was difficult. Before China's new-style tea era, milk tea in China usually sold for RMB 5 to RMB 7 per cup, while overseas sourcing made ingredients more expensive. Even if customers ordered one milk tea plus one dessert, average ticket size hit a ceiling quickly. Larger groups used the shops mainly for socializing, stayed longer, and slowed table turnover.
Operators added desserts, then snacks. Around 2014, Dubai Chinatown milk-tea shops began selling fried chicken wings, beef noodles, hot-and-sour noodles, and other light meals. Snacks often became as important as tea.
The underlying constraint was traffic. Beverage-store economics depend heavily on daily cup volume, and the local Chinese population was still limited. According to the Overseas Chinese Research Report 2016, the UAE was the fastest-growing Middle Eastern country for Chinese migrants, but its Chinese and overseas-Chinese population had reached only about 150,000 by 2015. Around 2013, milk tea could not yet grow on demographic momentum alone, making replacement by snack-led formats unsurprising.
After Dubai's early milk-tea phase and snack-store phase, China's new-style tea wave changed the market again.
Around 2016, Heytea and Nayuki moved north from Jiangmen and Shenzhen in Guangdong toward China's first-tier cities. In the Yangtze River Delta, Lelecha and 7 Fentian started from Shanghai and Suzhou before expanding nationally. This new wave later spread to North America and Europe.
The shift had three main features: fresh ingredients replaced premixed milk-tea powders and prepared jams; stores moved toward freshly made, ready-to-drink products; and brands upgraded their store environments and positioning.
Dubai followed. In 2018, Happy Lemon decided to enter Dubai and planned five stores, including key locations such as International City and Ibn Battuta Mall, as well as Outlet Village, a destination for global tourists.
Around the same year, Latea was founded in Shenzhen, Guangdong. After two years of research and planning, it chose to skip China's domestic market and go directly to Dubai. In May 2020, Latea opened its first store in Dubai's International City, giving it a foothold among core Chinese customers.
Tiger Sugar arrived later but also targeted Dubai. In 2021, it entered Deira City Centre, choosing a site where the metro and mall intersect, with strong foot traffic and location advantages.
Dubai's global status meant competition did not come only from Chinese tea chains. At Dubai Mall, beside the Burj Khalifa, brands such as Japan-origin % Arabica and Singapore's TWG Tea also competed for premium beverage occasions.
Ibn Battuta Mall showed the intensity more clearly. Happy Lemon and Latea competed with each other, while Japanese-style milk-tea brand Sushi Your Way, Starbucks, Canada's Tim Hortons, Dunkin, Costa, and local milkshake-and-juice brand Smoothie Factory all competed for beverage spend.
Latea held a prime position where Ibn Battuta Mall connects with the metro station, allowing it to close earlier. It operated until 11:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and until 10:00 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday. Happy Lemon, located in a less favorable corner, required customers to pass KFC, Starbucks, Carrefour, and other alternatives before reaching the store. To meet daily order targets, it extended hours, often closing 30 minutes to one hour later than Latea and stopping at midnight from Friday to Sunday.
The article argues that diligence alone was not enough; operators also needed leverage. While Sharetea and Chatime were early entrants, Latea, Tiger Sugar, and Happy Lemon were catching up. Among them, Latea appeared especially well positioned because of its cooperation with Majid Al Futtaim, a Dubai retail group with 29 shopping malls across five Middle Eastern and North African countries, including Mall of the Emirates, Mall of Egypt, Mall of Oman, and Mall of Saudi, plus exclusive franchise rights across more than 30 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and the CIS region.
In Doha, Qatar, host city of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the same new-style tea wave reshaped the market.
Unlike Dubai, where older chains and newer Chinese brands were prominent, Doha produced more locally grown Chinese-style tea players. Tabi Boba and Go-Sip Doha were among the city's largest local bubble-tea chains. Tabi Boba had four stores in Doha.
Tiger Sugar could still be found downtown, though the article noted its status as temporarily closed. Independent outlets were also gaining attention, including Xuan Tea on Ibn Mahmoud Street, Alice's Dessert Land in Muntazah, Pan Pan Milk Tea & Coffee Shop, Anime Café, Koi Milk Tea, So Souffle, and Bubble Bee.
In a country long familiar with karak and sulemani, bubble tea was novel enough to attract drinkers. But localization was not simple. Tabi Boba co-founder Tan Yanshan said local consumers' familiar karak and saffron flavors did not necessarily work in bubble tea, suggesting customers might not want local flavors produced by foreign-style brands.
Sugar level was another challenge. When local customers tried the half-sugar milk tea recommended by Chinese drinkers, their first reaction was often that it had no taste. Shops often needed full sugar or even double sugar for products to sell well among local customers.
This reflected regional dietary patterns. The World Health Organization reported that the Middle East was the world's fastest-growing region for sugar consumption. Existing data cited in the article put average daily sugar intake in the Middle East at 85 grams per person, far above the WHO recommendation of less than 10% of total energy intake, roughly 25 grams.
Egypt illustrated the preference. According to the FAO and OECD Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030, Egypt's average annual per-capita sugar consumption from 2018 to 2020 was 31.8 kilograms, higher than China at 11.1 kilograms, the United Kingdom at 27.9 kilograms, and the United States at 30.9 kilograms.
The health implications were serious. The Middle East had the world's highest diabetes prevalence, and in the Gulf more than one-fifth of adults had diabetes, pushing governments to encourage healthier, lower-sugar diets and lifestyles.
For operators, the commercial answer would normally be to follow consumer preference. Yet many Doha tea shops kept menus that clearly offered no sugar, less sugar, half sugar, more sugar, and full sugar, with zero-calorie sweetener alternatives. They also recommended the Chinese habit of half-sugar or less-sugar tea.
The article's conclusion is that Chinese-style milk tea in the Middle East was not just a product localization story. It became a medium for identity, belonging, and a healthier long-term relationship with consumers, while still serving the practical growth ambitions of operators abroad.
Note: expansion plans and store-count figures are historical and reflect the article's 2022 reporting.