价格战叠加外卖补贴，精品咖啡Seesaw倒在两轮咖啡大战中Price war combined with takeaway subsidies, boutique coffee Seesaw falls into two rounds of coffee wars

　　价格战叠加外卖补贴，精品咖啡Seesaw倒在两轮咖啡大战中

　　第一批被咖啡价格大战拖垮的精品连锁咖啡品牌出现了。近日企查查平台显示，昔日网红精品咖啡品牌Seesaw Coffee已于近期进入破产清算流程。在业内看来，市场经过两轮咖啡价格大战的冲击后，精品咖啡发展承压，需要重新寻找差异化的竞争点。

　　Seesaw破产清算

　　记者注意到，Seesaw的运营主体上海西舍咖啡有限公司(下称“上海西舍咖啡”)新增多例破产审查案件。今年2月28日和3月10日，上海玛露实业有限公司(下称“上海玛露实业”)与上海琉璃工房琉璃艺术品有限公司(下称“上海琉璃工房”)先后向法院提出申请，以上海西舍咖啡不能清偿到期债务且明显缺乏清偿能力为由，对上海西舍咖啡提起破产清算。

　　3月11日，法院裁定受理上海西舍咖啡破产清算案，并在摇号后指定北京市通商律师事务所上海分所为上海西舍咖啡的管理人，于4月23日召开了首次债权人会议。

　　企查查数据显示，截至目前，上海西舍咖啡涉及司法案件107起，2025年新增了超过50起。记者注意到，这些案件主要是供应商合同纠纷、追讨欠款，甚至包括创始人吴晓梅与银行、小额贷款公司的借贷纠纷等，不完全统计涉案总金额超过2000万元。

　　Seesaw Coffee创立于2012年，是国内最早的一批精品咖啡连锁品牌之一。凭借着新茶饮式的咖啡产品和独特的门店风格，Seesaw在2017年成为第一批拿到融资的连锁咖啡品牌，并在2021年和2022年收获了包括喜茶、基石资本、黑蚁资本在内的多家机构的数亿元A+轮融资，一度拥有了近200家门店。

　　但从2023年下半年开始，市场上关于Seesaw的基本面变得并不乐观，其也开启了一轮关店调整，开始退守其起家的华东区域和一二线重点城市。2024年下半年起，Seesaw多次传出欠薪、拖欠供应商货款的消息，创始人吴晓梅也一度被限制消费。

　　有债权人今日告诉记者，Seesaw从2023年末就开始拖欠他的货款，多次追讨后，Seesaw方面给出的还款计划均未如约执行，因此最终将其告上法庭，但直到目前仍未能拿到拖欠的款项。而首次债权人会议也没有进一步的消息透露。记者当天询问部分Seesaw的投资方，但截至发稿时并未收到进一步回应。

　　北京市通商律师事务所上海分所向第一财经回应表示，目前西舍咖啡破产清算还在推进，是否会有重整方等后续进展尚不方便透露。

　　精品咖啡亟待寻路

　　上海啡越投资管理有限公司董事长王振东在接受第一财经采访时曾表示，Seesaw Coffee的问题体现了在快咖啡冲击下，连锁精品咖啡的路越来越难走。

　　从2023年5月开始，快咖啡品牌在中国现制连锁咖啡市场掀起了一轮价格战以及以加盟为主的拓店大战，以库迪的9.9元咖啡为起点，瑞幸等各大咖啡品牌纷纷跟进，各快咖啡品牌的门店数量也大幅增长。2025年，快咖啡价格大战刚有降温的态势，外卖平台的补贴大战又带来了新一轮咖啡价格大战。

　　更重要的是，本轮快咖啡的扩张并非单纯低价竞争，针对中国消费者喜甜厌苦厌酸的口感特点，快咖啡品牌通过奶茶化的产品创新方式，借助较好的口感和积极的市场营销策略，迅速打开了局面。

　　在业内看来，这两轮咖啡大战带动了中国咖啡消费的进一步扩容，但快咖啡品牌受益更多。以瑞幸为例，截至2026年3月31日，瑞幸咖啡门店总数已达到33596家，杯量也从2018年的1800万杯增长至2025年的41亿杯，其中既有增量，也有存量的再分配。

　　从市场情况看，主打第三空间和精品咖啡的咖啡馆业绩都受到不同程度的影响。以与快咖啡品牌崛起同期进入中国市场的Tims天好中国为例，其业绩显示，2025年全年收入13.2亿元，同比下降5.4%，净亏损4.4亿元，同比也有所扩大，门店增长也在放缓。而在2023年之前，天好中国业绩和拓店保持着高增长的态势，但2023年也成为其业绩的拐点。

　　在此前的市场走访中，记者了解到，部分咖啡从业者对于快咖啡的冲击感到茫然无措，而业内也在探讨精品咖啡未来的发展模式，试图与快咖啡品牌建立更明显的差异。

　　战略定位专家、福建华策品牌定位咨询创始人詹军豪接受第一财经记者采访时表示，快咖啡价格战对精品咖啡的生存空间造成重大打击，Seesaw的出局印证了“高价重体验”模式难敌“低价规模化”竞争。但市场分层明显，精品咖啡仍有机会，需放弃盲目扩张，聚焦产地、烘焙与空间体验，以差异化避开正面竞争，锁定追求品质的小众客群。

　　作者：栾立

Price war combined with takeaway subsidies, boutique coffee Seesaw falls into two rounds of coffee wars

The first batch of boutique chain coffee brands that were dragged down by the coffee price war emerged. Recently, according to the Qichacha platform, Seesaw Coffee, a former internet celebrity boutique coffee brand, has entered the bankruptcy liquidation process. In the industry's view, after two rounds of coffee price wars, the development of specialty coffee is under pressure and needs to find differentiated competitive points again.

Seesaw bankruptcy liquidation

The reporter noticed that Seesaw's operating entity, Shanghai Xishe Coffee Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Xishe Coffee"), has added multiple bankruptcy review cases. On February 28th and March 10th of this year, Shanghai Malu Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Malu Industrial") and Shanghai Liuli Workshop Liuli Art Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Liuli Workshop") successively applied to the court for bankruptcy liquidation of Shanghai Xishe Coffee, citing its inability to repay its due debts and obvious lack of solvency.

On March 11th, the court ruled to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Shanghai Xishe Coffee and designated the Shanghai branch of Beijing Tongshang Law Firm as the administrator of Shanghai Xishe Coffee after the lottery. The first creditors' meeting was held on April 23rd.

According to data from Qichacha, as of now, Shanghai Xishe Coffee has been involved in 107 judicial cases, with over 50 new cases added by 2025. The reporter noticed that these cases mainly involve supplier contract disputes, debt recovery, and even loan disputes between founder Wu Xiaomei and banks, small loan companies, etc. The total amount involved in incomplete statistics exceeds 20 million yuan.

Seesaw Coffee was founded in 2012 and is one of the earliest boutique coffee chain brands in China. With its new tea drink style coffee products and unique store style, Seesaw became one of the first chain coffee brands to receive financing in 2017, and in 2021 and 2022, it received hundreds of millions of yuan in Series A+financing from multiple institutions including Heytea, Cornerstone Capital, and Black Ant Capital, owning nearly 200 stores at once.

However, starting from the second half of 2023, the fundamentals of Seesaw in the market have become less optimistic, and it has also initiated a round of store closure adjustments, starting to retreat to its roots in the East China region and key first and second tier cities. Starting from the second half of 2024, there have been multiple reports of Seesaw owing wages and payments to suppliers, and founder Wu Xiaomei has also been temporarily restricted from consumption.

A creditor told reporters today that Seesaw has been in arrears with his payment since the end of 2023. After multiple attempts to recover, Seesaw's repayment plan has not been executed as scheduled, so they ultimately sued him in court. However, they have not yet received the outstanding payment. And there was no further information disclosed about the first creditors' meeting. The reporter asked some Seesaw investors on the same day, but as of the time of writing, no further response has been received.

Beijing Tongshang Law Firm Shanghai Branch responded to First Financial that the bankruptcy liquidation of Xishe Coffee is still underway, and it is not convenient to disclose whether there will be a restructuring party and other follow-up developments.

Fine coffee urgently needs to find its way

Wang Zhendong, Chairman of Shanghai Feiyue Investment Management Co., Ltd., once said in an interview with First Financial that Seesaw Coffee's problems reflect the increasingly difficult path for chain specialty coffee under the impact of fast coffee.

Starting from May 2023, fast coffee brands have launched a round of price wars and franchise based store expansion wars in the Chinese freshly made chain coffee market. Starting from Kudi's 9.9 yuan coffee, major coffee brands such as Luckin Coffee have followed suit, and the number of stores for each fast coffee brand has also increased significantly. In 2025, the price war of fast coffee has just cooled down, and the subsidy war of food delivery platforms has brought a new round of coffee price war.

More importantly, the expansion of this round of fast coffee is not simply a low price competition. In response to the taste characteristics of Chinese consumers who prefer sweetness and dislike bitterness and sourness, fast coffee brands have quickly opened up the situation through product innovation in the form of milk tea, with the help of better taste and active marketing strategies.

In the industry's view, these two rounds of coffee wars have driven further expansion of coffee consumption in China, but fast coffee brands have benefited more. Taking Luckin Coffee as an example, as of March 31, 2026, the total number of Luckin Coffee stores has reached 33596, and the cup volume has increased from 18 million in 2018 to 4.1 billion in 2025, with both incremental and stock redistribution.

From the market situation, the performance of coffee shops that focus on third space and boutique coffee has been affected to varying degrees. Taking Tims Tianhao China, which entered the Chinese market at the same time as the rise of fast coffee brands, as an example, its performance shows that its annual revenue in 2025 was 1.32 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%, with a net loss of 440 million yuan, which has also expanded year-on-year, and store growth is slowing down. Prior to 2023, Tianhao China's performance and store expansion maintained a high growth trend, but 2023 also became a turning point for its performance.

In previous market visits, the reporter learned that some coffee practitioners feel confused about the impact of fast coffee, and the industry is also exploring the future development model of specialty coffee, trying to establish more obvious differences with fast coffee brands.

Zhan Junhao, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, stated in an interview with First Financial reporters that the price war of fast coffee has dealt a significant blow to the survival space of boutique coffee. Seesaw's exit confirms that the "high price heavy experience" model is difficult to compete with the "low price scale" competition. But the market segmentation is obvious, and there are still opportunities for premium coffee. We need to give up blind expansion, focus on the origin, roasting, and spatial experience, avoid direct competition with differentiation, and lock in niche customers who pursue quality.

Author: Luan Li

Source: First Financial