“I love you, you love me, MIXUE ice cream and tea.”

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times. It’s the MIXUE theme song that’s aggressively catchy, cheerful, and played at every single location. It’s the kind of jingle that lodges itself in your brain and resurfaces at the most inconvenient moments, like lying awake in bed at night. “I love you, you love me…“

The tune belongs to MIXUE Ice Cream & Tea, or Mixue Bingcheng in China. It’s a drinks and desserts chain that quietly dethroned McDonald’s in 2024 to become the largest fast-food chain in the world by store count. As of this year, MIXUE operates over 50,000 locations globally, with the majority concentrated across China and Southeast Asia.

Founded in 1997 as a humble shaved ice stand by a college student, MIXUE spent its first decade operating just a single store. But once expansion began, growth was explosive; it only took six years to jump from 1,000 stores to 40,000. The brand IPO’s in Hong Kong in early 2024, reporting 2.718 billion RMB (390 million USD) in profits, a 44.1% year-over-year increase. Between 2024 and 2025 alone, MIXUE opened 10,000 new locations, that’s an average of 27 stores per day!

And the simplest explanation for MIXUE’s success and dominance: It’s unapologetically cheap.

Cheap Drinks in an Expensive Milk Tea Market

Milk tea in China has long outgrown its original form. What was once a simple mixture of tea, milk, and boba has evolved into an experimental, hyper-competitive industry. Filled with premium tea bases, elaborate toppings, and milk foams. Today, a single cup can cost easily upwards of 30 RMB (4.3 USD), which is definitely a steep price to pay.

But MIXUE took the opposite approach. From the very beginning, the brand positioned itself firmly in third and fourth-tier cities, prioritizing accessibility over trendiness and novelty. None of its menu items exceeds 10 RMB (1.44 USD). Its most iconic offerings, the soft serve and lemonade, are between 2 and 5 RMB (0.30 and 0.72 USD), a fraction of what competitors charge.

MIXUE Comes Competitive to NYC

So when news broke that MIXUE would open its first North American location in New York City, my curiosity turned into disbelief. How could a chain built on ultra-low prices survive in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

The first NYC location opened on 8th Avenue, just a few blocks away from Times Square. Followed by a larger storefront on Broadway and a third in Chinatown on Canal Street. A Flushing Chinatown location is rumored to be next. The Canal Street store reportedly holds a 10-year lease, spanning 2,100 square feet, with rent estimated at 165 USD per square foot.

To my surprise, MIXUE stuck to its Chinese business model.

A soft-serve cone costs 1.19 USD, a large lemonade is only 1.99 USD, sundaes are 3.49 USD, while milk teas cap out at 4.99 USD. No item breaks the 5 USD mark—an almost unheard of price point in post-pandemic NYC. I ordered three drinks, after tax and optional tips, the total came out to 12.22 USD.

For comparison, other Chinese milk tea brands in NYC, such as HEYTEA or MOLLYTEA, average 7 to 9 USD per drink. While those brands may offer higher-end teas and more exotic flavors, MIXUE holds its own. Their drinks aren’t anything too flashy, but they are refreshing, tasty, and worth more than the price tag.

Why We Love the Snow King

When MIXUE first opened in NYC this past December, lines stretched down the block. The crowd was largely made up of Chinese international students and young people who grew up with MIXUE back home. For them, this was more than just another store opening; it offered a taste of familiarity.

Customers waited in the cold not just for drinks, but for photos with the Snow King mascot himself. MIXUE’s chubby, smirking snowman mascot is plastered everywhere in China, on storefronts, cups, billboards, and social media feeds. Over time, the Snow King has transcended his role as a corporate mascot to become a full-fledged meme and personality.

On RedNote, an account called Snow King Diary documents the King’s adventures across China, visiting cities, getting into mischief, and most recently, appearing in Times Square. The brand has also tied itself to broader cultural moments. It commissioned a Tang Sancai ceramic Snow King, a type of traditional three colored glaze technique from the Tang Dynasty. And when China’s northeastern provinces went viral for winter tourism, MIXUE responded with massive Snow King ice sculptures, including an 18-meter-tall version surrounded by smaller Snow King “troops.”

The MIXUE-Luckin Pairing

There’s a running joke in China: wherever you find a MIXUE, you’ll likely find a Luckin Coffee next door. The two chains have become something of inseparable twins; when a Luckin opens, a MIXUE usually follows soon behind. Online, people joke that Luckin feels vaguely “high-class” on its own, but the moment a MIXUE opens beside it, the coffee suddenly feels cheap by association.

Luckin Coffee, China’s largest coffee chain with over 25,000 locations, built its empire using a similar playbook: aggressive expansion and low prices. Together, Luckin and MIXUE dominate China’s coffee and tea economy with affordable consumption.

Naturally, I wondered if the same pairing existed in New York.

Luckin opened its first NYC location months before MIXUE, but unlike in China, it didn’t bring its ultra-low pricing overseas. The closest Luckin to MIXUE sits a few blocks away and is no cheaper than your average neighborhood coffee shop. The contrast makes MIXUE’s New York debut even more striking, in a city where a mediocre latte can easily cost over 6 USD, MIXUE’s sub-5 USD menu feels almost confrontational.

MIXUE’s success isn’t built on luxury. It’s built on affordability, consistency, and a willingness to be down-to-earth. In China’s hypercompetitive milk tea market, where everything feels overpriced, MIXUE’s affordability has become its own kind of luxury.

All hail the Snow King!

Cover image via Moren Mao.