Chinese milk tea brand ChaHalo to open first D-FW location in Plano

ChaHalo, a Chinese milk tea brand, is opening its first North Texas location in Plano around early August, according to the store’s owner.

The brand is from Xi’an, a city in north-central China. It offers drinks made from fresh milk and brewed whole-leaf tea, modernizing Chinese tea culture so it attracts more young people, said Eva Gao, owner of the Plano location.

ChaHalo was founded in 2016 and now has almost 1,000 stores in China and six locations in the United States, according to its website. Several more U.S. shops are upcoming, including in Plano and Houston.

The 1,100-square-foot space in Plano will have big glass windows and be decorated in shades of brown from the furniture and light wood-colored walls.

Customers visiting during soft and grand openings can choose from a smaller menu of signature drinks and receive store gifts: a ChaHalo horse charm and a cowboy-themed fridge magnet designed by Gao, a fine arts major in college. 

Milk tea drinks will cost $6.49 for medium and $6.99 for large, including signature drinks like Osmanthus Oolong Milk Tea, Rock Oolong Milk Tea, Jasmine Green Milk Tea, Dark Milk Tea infused with salted plums and Grape Flavored Oolong Milk Tea.

The tea frappé series, which adds a whipped cream top to the milk tea base, includes the signature ChaHalo Black Milk Tea Frappé ($7.49 for medium, $7.99 for large). It is a rare drink to find in Dallas, Gao said.

Other items include pure tea and drinks with boba, such as Jasmine Green Tea ($4.49) and Fresh Milk With Handmade Boba ($7.49). The full menu will be offered after the opening events.

Milk tea is having a moment in the United States. The national industry is expected to reach $2.9 billion in 2029, according to IBIS World, an industry research firm. Here in Dallas-Fort Worth, the popular Taiwanese store Chicha San Chen opened in Carrollton in January 2025. Feng Cha, a brand born in Richardson, Texas in 2017, opened several new stores last year. And Molly Tea, another famous Chinese brand, is scheduled to come to Carrollton this summer.

Related: Hot Girl Summer is in. So is Hot Matcha Summer in North Texas

Among Gao’s reasons for joining ChaHalo as a franchisee, one is straightforward.

“To bring better milk tea,” she said in Mandarin. “If a brand survives the competition in China, it’s not going to be bad.”

ChaHalo has a great emphasis on Chinese tea culture and high tea quality, both of which attracted Gao to the brand, she added.

She chose its Plano location because she struggled to find popular Chinese milk tea franchises in the area, even though a large Chinese population lives close by.

“For milk tea, you go to the best option within your closest area,” Gao said. “It’s not something that you are going to drive 30 minutes for.”

The area is also expanding with more restaurants, Gao said.

The food business is a new world for her. Up until a year ago, the 32-year old originally from Shanghai worked in real estate private equity in Dallas. Now, she owns a milk tea store and a home bakery called Eat Eat Dessert and More that specializes in Basque cheesecake and chiffon cake.

The home business began last summer and took off quickly. It now sells out its roughly 120 servings an hour before closing at the McKinney Farmers Market every Saturday morning, Gao said.

This April, Gao traveled to Xi’an to participate in a four-week training at ChaHalo headquarters, learning what she calls a really strict standard of operations, meticulous to the number of ice cubes for each ice level.

Gao said she may preview ChaHalo drinks at her dessert stand at the McKinney Farmers Market.

“The reason why I entered this industry and truly invested in it,” she said, “is because I have a great passion for food.”

ChaHalo is located at 6809 North Central Expressway, #500, Plano. 

CORRECTION, 11:37 a.m., June 18, 2026: An earlier version of this story misstated Eva Gao’s last name.