From Millions in Debt to 400 Stores in Vietnam: The Wujia Tea Story

Ask around Taiwan and few people will have heard of Wujia Tea Ice. It's not 50 Lan. It's not Qingxin.

But in Vietnam, it has more stores than any other Taiwanese bubble tea brand. CafeBiz, a Vietnamese financial outlet, reported 389 locations in May 2025 — far ahead of Gong Cha at 51 and KOI The at 64. By June, Wujia crossed 400.

Zero to 400 in six years. The question is how.

A Founder Who Failed First

Wu Long-zhong's path to bubble tea ran through a decade of failure.

He and his brother opened a French restaurant in Taiwan. Critics liked it. Customers didn't come. They closed it with over NT$10 million in debt. Wu spent the next ten-plus years cycling through other food businesses — beef noodle shops, hot pot restaurants — none of which cleared the debt.

Then he tasted a cup of old-fashioned iced black tea in Taichung and decided to start over with the simplest product he could find.

While building the brand, he made an observation that would define his business model: labor costs eat up about 35% of revenue in a typical beverage shop. If headquarters brewed the tea and delivered it daily, franchisees wouldn't need to hire brewing staff. The learning curve would shrink. The cost structure would change.

Central kitchen plus push cart franchise. That became the formula.

Vietnam, Not Taiwan, Was the Growth Story

Wu brought the brand to Ho Chi Minh City in 2019, setting up a factory and central kitchen. The Vietnamese name: Hong Tra Ngo Gia — Red Tea, House of Ngo.

The market was already crowded. Gong Cha, KOI The, Phuc Long, Toco Toco — all had established positions.

But Wujia didn't try to compete with any of them. It went after the places they wouldn't go, using the lowest possible barrier to let franchisees set up in neighborhoods, side streets, and small towns that big brands ignored.

The numbers tell the story. About 20 stores by late 2020. Around 60 by 2021. VietnamBiz counted 263 in September 2024. CafeBiz reported 389 by May 2025. In July 2025, the first Hanoi store opened, marking the push into the north.

The Three-Part Formula

Wujia's speed comes down to three things.

The first is the cart model. Franchisees don't need a storefront. A push cart is enough. Some locations are pure carts; others pair a small shop with a cart out front as both signage and work station. Roadsides, market entrances, school gates, residential alleys — anywhere with foot traffic works.

Total franchise cost runs about 500 million VND (roughly USD 20,000), covering the franchise fee, equipment, and deposits. A Gong Cha or Phuc Long costs much more to open.

Vietnam already had a template for this. Banh Mi Ma Hai, a local fish cake banh mi chain, runs the exact same playbook. Founder Ho Duc Hai started with a single bread cart near his university campus in 2013, using 2 million VND (under USD 100) in savings. He began franchising in 2015 with a franchise fee of just 7.5 million VND (about USD 300) — headquarters supplies ingredients, franchisees sell. Today, Ma Hai has over 1,000 locations and moves nearly a million sandwiches a month, making it Vietnam's largest cart-based franchise.

Wujia applied the same logic to bubble tea. The franchise fee is much higher than Ma Hai's, but for the tea market, it's still cheap.

The second element is the central kitchen. Franchisees don't brew tea. Headquarters delivers every day. This handles quality consistency and labor costs in one move. The daily operation boils down to: receive tea, sell tea, collect payment.

The third is pricing. Wujia's core range sits at 20,000 to 30,000 VND per cup — roughly USD 0.80 to 1.20. A large 960cc basic tea is 18,000 VND, about the same as a sugarcane juice from a street vendor. Other Taiwanese brands charge 40,000 to 60,000 VND for a 500cc cup.

At these prices, Wujia's customer isn't someone grabbing a treat once a month. It's the student or office worker buying a drink every day.

Why Repeat Customers Change Everything

Brand loyalty in Vietnam's consumer market is low. A 2025 customer experience report put overall satisfaction at 7.45 out of 10, but brand loyalty at only about 20%. Bubble tea is no different — consumers chase whatever is new.

Wujia's team understood this and did the math differently.

A trendy tea brand might get a customer to try one or two cups before they move on. Lifetime value: about 50,000 to 60,000 VND. A Wujia customer buys 50 to 100 cups a year, generating 1.5 to 3 million VND annually.

The gap is tens of times. That's the business case for ignoring advertising and doubling down on product and operations.

Wujia doesn't run big marketing campaigns. The tools are basic: buy five get one free, VIP point cards, a 2,000 VND discount for members. The brand has accumulated about 500,000 members total.

The store network follows the same philosophy: density over glamour. The goal is a store within 2 km of every customer. CafeBiz noted that Wujia keeps a low media profile but has enormous coverage — stores in residential areas, small towns, and school zones where rent is low and premium brands don't show up.

On the product side, the focus stays narrow: classic iced black tea and milk tea. In 2021, Wujia's classic black tea and Jin Xuan green tea won three-star awards from the International Taste Institute (iTQi) in Europe. Vietnamese customers often note the default sweetness is high and recommend ordering half sugar.

Surviving the Shakeout

Wujia's expansion happened to land during a market reckoning.

In 2025, Vietnam's budget bubble tea segment hit a wall. VietnamBiz called it a "nam thanh loc" — a year of culling.

Mixue, the Chinese chain, cut stores in Vietnam for the first time. Toco Toco, a local brand, shrank from a peak of 600 locations to about 234. Bobapop collapsed from 90 stores at the start of the year to just 14.

Wujia was one of the few budget brands still growing through all of this.

The premium segment is a separate fight. KOI The (64 stores), Phe La (59), and Gong Cha (51) are competing for higher-end customers, and Chinese newcomer Chagee has entered the market. But none of them play on Wujia's field.

What Could Go Wrong

Four hundred stores is impressive. It also creates risks.

Quality control is the biggest one. The cart model's advantage is its lightness; its weakness is inconsistency. Operating conditions vary wildly across hundreds of franchised carts in different provinces. Hygiene and storage standards are hard to enforce at scale.

Franchisee survival rates deserve scrutiny too. Vietnam's franchise market is brutal — many operators across all brands close within six months. Renewal rates and closure rates are the real indicators of franchise health, but the industry rarely discloses them.

The northern market is still a question mark. Wujia spent six years building its base in the south. Hanoi's consumer habits and competitive dynamics are different. The first store drew attention when it opened in July 2025, but long-term traction remains unproven.

The Power of Simple

From NT$10 million in debt to 400 stores in a foreign country. It took Wu Long-zhong over a decade.

His model works because it fills a structural gap. Big brands carry high setup costs and concentrate in city centers. Wujia uses carts, a central kitchen, and sub-20,000 VND pricing to reach everywhere they can't.

A simple model, run at scale. The story is still being written.