China's Luckin Coffee Tries To Conquer A Nation Of Tea Drinkers

In a country identified with one warm beverage – tea – coffee is now hot. Indeed, as China catapults from its traditional past into a global future, java is jumping – and one national company is leading the way: Luckin Coffee.

Established in October 2017, Luckin Coffee has quickly become the second largest coffee chain in China after Starbucks. As of March, it has opened 2,370 stores — mostly in office buildings —across 28 cities and sold 90 million cups of coffee to more than 16.8 million customers, according to its official document to investors. It went public on Nasdaq on Friday.

This ambitious Chinese coffee brand aims to have 4,500 stores throughout the country by the end of this year, surpassing Starbucks, which has 3,600 branches on the streets of 150 Chinese cities two decades after it arrived in China.

Luckin, or ruixing in Chinese, means "happiness" and "luck." This lucky newcomer on April 22 filed paperwork for its Nasdaq initial public offering, aiming to raise $510 million. It secured $150 million in Series B funding four days before that, boosting the company's value to $2.9 billion.