Kopi Kenangan Opens First Taiwan Store, Entering Its Seventh International Market

At TWD 69 to 130 per drink, Kopi Kenangan positioned itself at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A11 in Taipei's Xinyi district as exactly what Taiwan's café market rarely offers: something more substantial than a convenience store machine coffee, priced well below the premium chains. The Indonesian chain, which trades internationally as Kenangan Coffee, opened its first Taiwan store in late March, marking its seventh international market and its most deliberate pitch yet at the island's price-sensitive, coffee-obsessed urban consumer.

The entry is structured as a joint venture, a deliberately different configuration from the chain's self-owned India operation and its Australian partnership. Co-founder and Group CEO of Kenangan Brands Edward Tirtanata has been explicit about the model-by-market logic: "The branch in Australia is a partnership. In Taiwan, it is a joint venture, and in India, it is self-owned. We are quite flexible in the country, depending on the legality." That joint venture architecture in Taiwan suggests local operational knowledge is baked into the launch, likely a hedge against the supply-chain and consumer taste calibration challenges that have caught other regional chains attempting rapid multi-market rollouts.

The brand's differentiator in Taipei rests on three things: gula aren, its app, and that pricing wedge. The Kenangan Latte, built around Indonesian palm sugar rather than standard syrups, is the calling card internationally, alongside a Spanish Latte and Americano that anchor a lean, scalable menu. The signature Kopi Kenangan Mantan, the drink whose name became a cultural touchstone in Indonesia, is confirmed for the Taiwan lineup. Tirtanata indicated before opening that the iconic drink would travel intact, even as specific local adaptations were still being finalized.

The choice of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A11, a premium lifestyle anchor steps from Taipei 101, is not incidental. Kopi Kenangan enters a zone already occupied by local milk tea chains and international players, but with a retail-prestige halo that few Southeast Asian café exports have managed before. The Xinyi location captures both affluent local shoppers and the tourist traffic that flows through the district daily.

What Taipei's existing operators may feel most acutely is the pricing architecture. The TWD 69 to 130 range undercuts specialty independents and major chain lattes while sitting well above the NT$40-range convenience store tier, targeting the mid-market daily drinker that Taiwan's dominant local chains have historically owned through promotions and loyalty programs. A brand with Kopi Kenangan's digital ordering infrastructure, built for high-volume grab-and-go throughput across more than 1,100 Indonesian outlets and a growing international network including 158 stores in Malaysia and outposts in Singapore, the Philippines, India, and Australia, brings loyalty-app and delivery-first capability that pure local operators can struggle to match at scale.

World Coffee Portal noted that further expansion beyond East Asia is planned for the second half of 2026, meaning the Taipei store is less an endpoint than a live test of the brand's next global chapter.