Cotti Coffee enters sixth European market with €0.99 espresso strategy

Cotti Coffee is not trying to win Europe by becoming the neighborhood café. It is pushing in as a speed-and-value chain, with €0.99 espressos, app-led ordering and compact stores built for quick pickups rather than long stays. With its sixth European market now added in less than six months, the Chinese operator is asking a sharper question of the region’s coffee scene: can low prices and impulse buying reshape how younger consumers treat coffee?

The company’s European debut began at the end of January 2026, when it launched simultaneously in France, Germany and Spain. Two stores followed in London at the start of February, marking a fast UK entry. Since then, reported moves have pointed to Italy, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands, while one Berlin opening was described as a roughly 50-square-meter site, a size that fits the chain’s grab-and-go model more than a lingering café ritual.

That format is the point. Cotti has been described as digital-first, aggressively discounted and designed around minimal staffing and small spaces, with a menu that mixes basic coffee with fruit-infused and iced drinks. In a market where many branded coffee shops still trade on seating, atmosphere and repeat dwell time, Cotti is positioning coffee as a retail purchase: quick, cheap and easy to add to a day already moving at full speed. That is a direct challenge to the European habit of treating coffee as a pause rather than a transaction.

Belgium now looks like the next test. Recent reporting has said Cotti planned six outlets in the country, including two in Brussels and additional locations in Antwerp, Ghent and Namur. The Brussels sites were tied to the city’s EU quarter near the Berlaymont and to the Grand Place area, a sign that the chain is targeting high-footfall urban zones where convenience can beat ceremony. The same rollout pattern could pressure local operators to rethink price points, menu design and store size.

Cotti was founded in 2022 by former Luckin Coffee executives Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya, and multiple reports now place its global footprint above 18,000 stores. Europe is a tempting arena for that scale play, with one industry analysis cited in coverage putting the region at more than 32% of global coffee consumption. If Cotti keeps expanding at this pace, the bigger story may not be how many flags it plants, but whether a €0.99 espresso can teach Europe’s younger drinkers to think of coffee as a fast retail stop instead of a long café habit.