Mixue comes knocking: Popular Chinese ice cream and tea chain opens first Aussie store in Sydney

Chinese ice cream and tea brand Mixue has opened its first Australian store in Sydney’s World Square, with plans for two more stores in Brisbane and Melbourne to open their doors in due course.

To celebrate the launch of its first Australian store, a marketing campaign run by Mixue offered students from across Sydney a sweet deal — with the promotional slogan “1000 Sydney students to have a drink for free”.

Mixue Ice Cream and Tea currently has 21,000 stores in China and 600 stores in 11 Asian countries.

Five years ago Mixue went global with its first international store opening in 2018 in Hanoi, Vietnam. That same year Mixue launched its new logo — the Snow King, a snowman wearing a crown with the title Chief Quality Officer and lifetime spokesperson of Mixue Ice Cream & Tea.

Mixue Bingcheng Ice Cream and Tea was created in 1997 by Zhang Hongchao, who at the time was a college student, in Zhengzhou. According to Mixue’s website, the creation of the ice cream and tea brand kicked off a lifelong journey and mission of “bringing fresh ice cream and tea designated for the young starts” and “bringing high-quality and affordable products to everyone around the world”.

Mixue has confirmed that, although pricing will be different, the quality will remain the same at the new locations. 

“Each country has different pricing, but no matter which country our store is opened, it will maintain high quality and low prices,” the company said.

Australia has well and truly jumped on the bubble and milk tea trend in recent years, with more and more tea chains revealing plans to expand in Australia. 

Last year, Taiwanese global franchise teahouse chain Chatime announced plans to open a further 100 stores in Australia by 2025 after revealing its Australian expansion plans in 2021.

The chain is planning to open another 20 stores before the end of 2022. When Chatime opens these new stores the brand will have a total of 250 in Australia.

In 2022, international milk tea brand Gong Cha also announced plans to open 17 new stores to its existing 118 locations in Australia. Premium bubble tea brand Gotcha has also revealed its own plans to open 50 new franchise stores in the next two years.

In August 2022, a report released by Singapore-headquartered venture outfit Momentum Works showed that Southeast Asian consumers spent as much as $3.66 billion a year on tea, among which Indonesia and Thailand were the largest markets.