Chinese milk tea company causes controversy over map, suddenly announces opening in HCMC

(Dan Tri) - Having faced a wave of backlash from the Vietnamese online community when the "cow tongue line" map appeared on the application, after 4 months of silence, the Chinese milk tea company Chagee has just announced its opening in Ho Chi Minh City.

Quietly announcing its opening, Chagee continues to be boycotted

On July 14, the milk tea brand Chagee announced the "start of a new journey" at its official store in Ho Chi Minh City after a period of being called for a boycott by the Vietnamese online community.

After 4 months of silence amidst the public storm, the Chagee brand announced that it would open a store at 59 Nguyen Duc Canh, Tan Hung Ward (old District 7), Ho Chi Minh City.

This move quickly met with a wave of backlash from the Vietnamese online community. Although the comment function was disabled, within just a few hours of Chagee Vietnam's official page sharing the announcement, the post recorded more than 13,000 angry emojis.

"We want to bring the complete tea experience closer to Vietnamese customers," part of the announcement posted on the fanpage reads.

The reason is that before that, the milk tea brand from China was involved in a serious scandal. In March, many Vietnamese accounts discovered that on the brand's application there was an image of an illegal "cow tongue line" map.

This angered Vietnamese fans, who demanded a boycott of the brand. Many individuals said they used to be fans of the drink but were ready to declare they would "turn their backs forever."

In the face of protests, Chagee quietly removed the controversial image, but without any official explanation or apology. The silence only fueled the anger of the crowd.

On Chagee’s app, many social media accounts flooded in, leaving negative comments. The milk tea brand also received a series of 1-star reviews (the lowest rating) on the Internet.

On March 20, at a press conference on the social situation in Ho Chi Minh City, a representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports said that they were coordinating with the Ho Chi Minh City Police to work with Chagee Vietnam Company Limited to clarify the case to consider and handle the act of providing information about the Chagee application that illegally uses the image of the "cow tongue line", violating Vietnam's territorial sovereignty .

According to the representative of the Department, violations of providing, using, and transmitting information and images of Vietnam's maps that violate national sovereignty will be considered and handled according to the law.

Many articles called for a boycott of the milk tea brand because of the illegal map image (Screenshot).

After that, this brand quietly removed the signboard located at the expensive location at the intersection of Nguyen Thiep - Dong Khoi and continued to be silent. This made many people believe that Chagee had withdrawn from the Vietnamese market.

However, after about 4 months of "disappearance", Chagee suddenly announced its first store in a new location in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, Chagee has not provided any new information, while the wave of boycott of this milk tea brand by Vietnamese people is still going strong on many social networking platforms.

"Touching the limits, the brand can be completely killed"

Talking to Dan Tri reporter, Mr. Tran Trung Hieu, an expert in the F&B industry ( food and beverage), commented that the F&B industry has an extremely close relationship with culture.

According to Mr. Hieu, when beverage companies open branches abroad, the first thing they need to do is understand the culture of that region, from food preferences, aesthetic taste, respect for history to the way local people communicate.

Inside a branch of this milk tea brand in Los Angeles, USA (Photo: Eater).

When doing communications, understanding how local people perceive your message is vital. If you only follow the subjective, willful will of the brand owner and ignore cultural and historical factors, it is easy to lead to conflicts and make serious mistakes.

This expert believes that any behavior, whether intentional or unintentional, if it touches cultural limits, that brand can be completely terminated.

Foreign brands need to be very careful when trying to win the hearts of local people. If the first impression is bad, the journey to restore trust will be extremely difficult, especially when the brand comes from another country.

"In March, Chagee entered Vietnam but failed because of an inappropriate approach. This shows that no matter how big a brand is or how strong its resources are, once it loses consumer trust, it is very difficult to restore it," Mr. Hieu analyzed.

Chagee is a premium milk tea brand founded in Yunnan province, China in 2017.

Unlike mainstream milk tea brands, this milk tea chain focuses on combining traditional tea making art with modern style.

Chagee has expanded aggressively into international markets, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines.

The scale of the Chinese milk tea chain Chagee is reflected in more than 6,000 stores worldwide with more than 3,500 branches in China.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/du-lich/hang-tra-sua-trung-quoc-gay-tranh-cai-vu-ban-do-bat-ngo-bao-mo-cua-o-tphcm-20250715123952373.htm