Guming Pilots Draft Beer: Can It Unlock Nighttime Demand?

Guming has begun serving freshly poured draft beer at its Hubin Intime store in Hangzhou. It is the first time a major new-style tea brand has added a draft beer item to its existing stores. According to reporting by Zebra Consumption© on Huxiu, the move is positioned as an experiment to monetize nighttime hours. At almost the same time, Sexy Tea’s tavern format is expected to close all of its stores. The contrast of advance and retreat highlights the severity of a saturated market.

The new-style tea industry has finished the stage of growing through store expansion. It has entered a stage of securing higher revenue by raising utilization at existing stores. Using coffee to complement the morning has become an established method. The focus now is whether the remaining nighttime gap can be filled with draft beer. Operating constraints and differences in customer segments stand as barriers, and replication will not be easy.

The End of Store Expansion and the Start of

Stock Competition

According to Hongcan Big Data, China’s freshly brewed tea drink market was 175.7 billion yuan in 2024 and 195.7 billion yuan in 2025. It is expected to reach 210 billion yuan in 2026, but growth has clearly slowed. While the market expands, entrants continue to increase. According to iiMedia, the number of new-style tea brands in China rose from 3,905 in 2023 to 4,223 in 2025. By July 2026, it had surged to 5,422.

The total number of stores peaked at 445,100 in 2023 and has continued to decline. By July 2026, it had shrunk to about 372,700. Large numbers of openings and closures are proceeding in parallel, and turnover is intensifying. Behind this are saturated trade areas and excessive competition in the low-price segment. The structure that secured stable profits through scale expansion alone has collapsed.

Earnings confirm the change. MIXUE Group had about 64,000 stores at the end of June 2026. The figure includes tea drinks, coffee, and draft beer, up about 11,000 stores from a year earlier. The increase corresponds to a 20.75% year-on-year rise. Even so, operating revenue for the first half of 2026 was only 15.216 billion yuan. Growth was just 2.3% year-on-year. Hit by a lower gross margin and higher expenses, net profit attributable to the parent fell 14.73% year-on-year.

Guming, with more than 10,000 stores, shows a similar pattern. Its store count in the first half of this year increased by 3,000 from a year earlier. Even so, it reported higher revenue but lower profit. This shows it has entered a stage where openings no longer translate directly into sales growth. The entire industry is being forced to dig deeper into existing stores through meticulous operations.

New-style tea stores concentrate operations in the midday and afternoon. Mornings and nights see thinner traffic, leaving equipment, staff, and space idle. Whether this idle time can be monetized has become a competitive axis. Using coffee to complement the morning has spread widely. The idea of complementing the night with alcohol has now emerged.

Coffee Strategy That Filled the Morning Gap

Guming was an early mover in introducing coffee into its stores. Coffee machine penetration in its stores has now reached 94%. Almost all stores can sell both tea drinks and coffee. This system captured morning demand. Single-store indicators in the interim results remained broadly flat year-on-year.

Single-store GMV and average daily single-store GMV in the first half of this year were on par with a year earlier. Single-store cups sold and average daily single-store cups sold were also flat. According to reporting by Zebra Consumption© on Huxiu, coffee filled the gap in the morning peak hours. It is seen as having stemmed the decline in tea-based drinks. It is a case where interim figures demonstrated the commercial value of expanding time slots.

Other brands followed, making the structure even more complex. Almost all major new-style tea brands have introduced coffee into their stores. Meanwhile, freshly ground coffee players such as Luckin and Cotti have also started selling tea-based drinks. The two markets, once separate, have entered a melee. Competition for daytime production capacity is intensifying.

Once daytime capacity is fully exploited, nighttime becomes the next frontier. Fixed store costs continue to accrue at night. Efficiency improves if staffing and equipment operation can be extended into the night. The entry into draft beer follows this trend. However, the successful daytime formula cannot simply be transferred as is.

Coffee and tea drinks were a good operational fit. Both see stable demand throughout the year with little seasonal variation. Production is completed in-store with water, electricity, and staff. The additional licensing burden was relatively small. Existing supply chains and training systems could be reused.

These conditions do not apply to nighttime alcohol. Consumption hours and user segments are very different. Storage and quality-control requirements are another matter entirely. The success of coffee is no grounds for optimism. Guming’s cautious pilot approach speaks to that.

Three Alcohol Sales Models Targeting

Nighttime Demand

Alcohol sales at tea shops are not a new attempt. Years of trial and error have produced three different models. None is fully established. Huxiu’s reporting groups them into asset-heavy, standalone, and embedded types.

The first is the asset-heavy, space-based model chosen by Sexy Tea. On April 15, 2024, it launched an independent sub-brand. Named Day-Night Poetry, Wine and Tea - Yiwen Tavern, it opened its first five stores in Changsha. It featured an immersive dine-in experience blending tea and alcohol.

The idea was to serve tea by day and alcohol by night in the same space. Incorporating cultural elements, it aimed to extend dwell time. After more than two years of exploration, the model never solidified. It failed to generate sustained, healthy sales. All stores are now expected to close on October 31 this year.

The second is the standalone sub-brand model pursued by MIXUE. In September 2025, it invested 297 million yuan. It acquired a 53% stake in draft beer brand Fulujia and consolidated it. Fulujia offers 500ml of freshly poured draft beer for 6 to 11 yuan. It targets everyday consumption in the low-price segment.

Leveraging MIXUE’s mature franchise system, expansion was rapid. Its store count has now exceeded 3,000. That is more than double the number at the start of the year. However, MIXUE Group did not disclose the brand’s operating results in its interim report. Related descriptions suggest it is still in the stage of building its supply chain and optimizing operations. It has not yet grown into a new pillar of growth.

The weakness of the standalone model is that existing assets cannot be reused. Fulujia can draw on MIXUE’s methods. Even so, it cannot share the supply chain, nor divert stores, traffic, or staff. It is effectively equivalent to opening up a new market. It loses the cost advantage of existing stores and impairs growth efficiency.

The third is Guming’s lightweight embedded model. It creates no standalone stores or new brands. It simply adds beer servers to pilot stores. It uses the setting of existing stores to test demand. It verifies true demand at low cost and limits the risk of large-scale trial and error.

It is still too early to judge which of the three models is superior. The asset-heavy model can create experiences but requires heavy investment. The standalone model can expand quickly but cannot use the strengths of existing stores. The embedded model carries little risk but has a cap on sales volume. Which model is the right answer for the night remains to be verified.

Operational Constraints Blocking Draft

Beer Rollout

Guming’s stance on coffee and on draft beer are in sharp contrast. Coffee was rolled out aggressively, reaching 94% penetration. Draft beer is being quietly tested at a single store in Hangzhou. Huxiu’s reporting sees this difference as a sign of operational difficulty. Conditions that make a nationwide rollout difficult in the short term are piling up.

The first hurdle is licensing. Regular tea drink stores often do not include alcohol sales qualifications. Some provinces and cities have certain regulatory requirements. Alcohol sales are strictly controlled, and sales to minors are prohibited. Certain regulatory risks exist. Carelessness could spill over to the entire store system.

Operational weaknesses are also pronounced. Coffee and tea drinks are stable items throughout the year. With little seasonality, demand is easy to forecast. Draft beer is strongly seasonal and occasion-driven. Consumption concentrates on summer nights and holidays, and demand shrinks sharply in autumn and winter.

Freshly poured draft beer has high requirements for freshness and cold-chain distribution. Shelf-life management is strict, and loss costs are higher than for regular items. This directly affects franchisees’ willingness to adopt it. Building the headquarters’ supply chain alone cannot solve it. Waste and inventory burdens remain at each store.

This content is published with the author’s permission and represents only the views of the author, not the position of Huxiu.

Supply Chains Will Decide Success in

Leveraging Existing Stores

Differences in the user base are also a major issue. Guming’s core customers are said to be students and young women. Draft beer corresponds to nighttime social occasions with many male users. It is difficult to connect the user bases across categories. The structure makes stable repeat visits hard to achieve.

Behavior by time slot also differs. Tea drinks center on takeout and short stays. Turnover is high, making it easier to ensure efficiency per floor area. Alcohol involves longer stays, conversation, and companions. Turnover falls, while noise and safety-management burdens increase. Using the same store for both requires a change in operating design.

Whether supply chains can be shared will decide success or failure. Coffee could reuse tea drink procurement, logistics, and training. Management of powder, milk, and water could be handled as an extension of existing processes. Draft beer requires a separate system for cold-chain distribution, keg management, and cleaning. Much of it cannot ride on the existing tea drink supply chain.

MIXUE’s case illustrates this wall. Even with a mature franchise system, a separate supply chain lowers efficiency. Guming’s embedded model aims to minimize this challenge. It adds minimal equipment to existing stores to verify actual demand. Verifying store-level economics before a national rollout is a sound process.

Developing nighttime increments remains a common industry challenge. As daytime capacity use approaches its limit, nighttime use becomes unavoidable. Whether draft beer is the right product is still undecided. Combinations with low-alcohol drinks and light food are also options. Competition in operating techniques to utilize idle store hours will continue.

Editorial Opinion

On short-term impact, in the next three to six months, sales figures from Guming’s pilot store will attract attention. Once the summer peak passes, the extent of the autumn-winter decline will become material for judging viability. As this will affect franchisees’ willingness to adopt it, the headquarters will need to show support for licensing and a design for waste burdens.

On the long-term view, in one to three years, use of stores in nighttime hours will spill over into efficiency competition across retail as a whole. The key will be whether cold-chain distribution and keg management can be integrated into the existing network. Product design to bridge differences in user segments will advance, potentially forming an intermediate zone between tea drinks and alcohol.

A question from the editorial team: is adding items the only right way to utilize idle hours at existing stores? Alcohol, with its long dwell time, changes the premises for turnover and safety management. What is truly being tested may be operating technology that combines labor-saving equipment with demand forecasting.

References

• ” 古茗入酒局，啤酒是新茶饮的夜间解药？ ”, by 斑马消费© — 虎嗅网, 2026-09-08T23:47:55.000Z (ARR)
• Source URL: https://www.huxiu.com/article/4889662.html?f=rss