Cotti Coffee quietly expands in the U.S. through local partners

Cotti Coffee is moving into the U.S. coffee market in a way that is easy to miss if you only track the noisy flagship openings. Instead of a single splashy debut, the chain is building through affiliates, licensees and franchise plans tied to its Chinese supply chain, a slower-burn strategy that could matter more to everyday coffee buyers than another headline store.

The company’s U.S. franchise disclosure document names COTTI PARTNERS LLC of 8 The Green, Suite B, Dover, Delaware 19901 as the franchisor and says it plans to begin offering Cotti Coffee franchises in the United States in 2026. The filing lists a total initial investment of $259,170 to $608,200 and says the menu will include made-to-order coffee and tea, bottled products, snacks, dessert and related merchandise. It also says no government agency has verified the document’s information.

Cotti has already shown up in scattered U.S. markets. Its American debut was reported with a Hawaii store on May 3, 2024, and later store sightings placed the chain in Manhattan, Brooklyn and several California locations. The chain also used a sharp introductory pitch, offering 99-cent coffees to first-time customers who downloaded its app, the kind of pricing hook designed to pull in traffic fast without a big brand-build campaign.

That low-key expansion reflects the company’s roots. Cotti was established in 2022, with international headquarters in Hong Kong, and it was founded by former Luckin Coffee leaders Charles Lu, also known as Lu Zhengyao, and Qian Zhiya after Luckin’s accounting scandal. In China, its low-price drinks were sold for as little as CNY9.9, or about $1.40, and the chain used zero franchise fees and zero brand usage fees to pull in operators. That same formula helped Cotti scale fast and gave it a reputation as a value player with a hard-nosed franchise model.

Its reported size still shifts by source and date, with company materials saying it operates in 28 countries with 10,000+ stores, while other trade references have put the total above 14,000 and as high as 15,000 outlets worldwide. However the count is sliced, the pattern is clear: Cotti is trying to grow in the U.S. less like a trophy import and more like a convenience-first, price-driven challenger, the kind that can quietly take morning traffic from Starbucks, Dutch Bros and the rest of the value lane one local partner at a time.