CoCo’s Amman Shop Tests a Middle East Franchise Bet

CoCo Bubble Tea opened its first official Middle East shop in Amman in September 2025. The Taiwanese chain, which says it has over 5,000 stores worldwide, put that counter on Al-Istethmar Street and told partners a UAE and North Africa rollout would follow.

More than a year later, that licensed Jordan shop is still the door CoCo can point to. A UAE store has not been announced, while rival Gong cha’s Saudi site already lists 11 shops in Riyadh and Jeddah.

CoCo’s First Official Middle East Shop Is in Amman

CoCo’s Sept. 8, 2025 release said the first Middle East location would open in Amman in early September. The same date, the local account @cocobubbletea.jo posted that the shop was officially open and told customers to visit the next day.

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Kody Wong, CoCo’s director of business development, tied the cup to a longer franchise pitch, not a one-shop stunt. CoCo’s own Amman debut note used the same line: adapt to local taste, then arm partners.

We are just beginning in the Middle East, but we aspire to one day have as robust a franchise network here as we do globally.

Kody Wong, Director of Business Development, CoCo Bubble Tea

The company dated itself to 1997 and sold the Amman unit as the start of a regional network, with marketing help, on-site consulting, and a training kit built for the Middle East. The address it printed later is Al-Istethmar St, Amman 11111.

Dubai Already Had a CoCo That Was Not CoCo

Jordan is an odd first flag if the goal is Gulf footfall. Dubai had already seen a shop using the CoCo name, and CoCo had already told customers that shop was not theirs.

On Aug. 31, 2022, CoCo posted an unauthorized-store notice that named three sites: Bio CoCo in Antwerp, CoCo The Bubble Tea Bar in La Paz, and CoCo Fresh Restaurant and Cafeteria in Dubai, in the Al Fahidi Building opposite Burjuman Mall. The company said it had not granted those operators the mark and reserved the right to act.

THE PATH TO A LICENSED DOOR

1. Aug. 31, 2022: CoCo warns that shops in Dubai, Antwerp, and La Paz have no formal tie to the brand.
2. Aug. 31, 2024: From Taipei, CoCo publishes a Halal menu and says it wants master franchise partners in the Middle East.
3. Sept. 8, 2025: CoCo names Amman as the first official Middle East store and says UAE and North Africa plans are underway.
4. April 20, 2026: A Europe partnership note says CoCo expanded into Egypt and Armenia that year, with no shop address attached.

The 2024 pitch was blunt about demand. Kody Wang, billed then as director of business development, said inquiries from the region had jumped and that CoCo wanted master franchisers, not just a pop-up cup. CoCo also cited a global bubble tea market it put at $2.46 billion in 2023, heading to $4.08 billion by 2030, a 66 percent rise on its own figures.

What the Amman Shop Pours

The Amman store uses Halal-certified raw materials, a shorter menu than CoCo’s full global board, and a training plan written for Middle East partners. Those three changes are the product as much as the tea. They cut kitchen complexity for a first-time franchisee and answer the dietary bar that blocks a standard milk-tea build in this region.

CoCo’s verified account listed the Jordan cups in plain language. 3 Brothers is milk tea with pearls, pudding, and grass jelly. Tropical Special is passion fruit green tea with coconut jelly and pearls. The Jordan signature, Popping Blue Moon, is a mango drink with blue curacao syrup, coconut jelly, and lychee popping pearls.

WHAT COCO CHANGED FOR THE REGION

• The menu: A curated board, sold as easier to order and cheaper to run than a full global list.
• The supply: All raw materials on that board are Halal-certified, a step CoCo had already packaged as a Halal Bubble Tea menu in 2024.
• The training: A region-specific onboarding and operations kit, so a partner can copy CoCo’s standards without importing a foreign shop-floor script.

The first comments under the opening reel were practical. People asked whether they could order on Talabat and where, exactly, the shop sat. One drinker said it was already a favourite from years in Canada. The brand arrived as a known name for some customers and as a map pin for everyone else.

CoCo’s Facebook page was still using the Amman store graphic on May 11, 2026, which is the last dated company post in this reporting that treats the Jordan shop as a live location.

Gong Cha Lists 11 Shops Across Riyadh and Jeddah

While CoCo was still introducing one licensed counter in Amman, Gong cha’s Saudi site had already filled a store directory. Gong cha’s listed Saudi shops run to 11 locations, including The View Mall, Hamra Mall, Alia Plaza, Hittin, Al Qasr Mall, Princess Noura University, two King Khalid Airport sites, and three Jeddah shops at Yasmeen Mall, Aziz Mall, and Obhur.

TWO TAIWANESE CHAINS, TWO FOOTPRINTS

That gap is the bet in numbers. CoCo spent 2024 and 2025 building a Halal kit and a slim menu so a partner could open cleanly. Gong cha, on the evidence of its own Saudi directory, used the same window to stack mall and airport counters in the Kingdom’s two largest cities.

The UAE Store Has Not Been Announced

CoCo’s September 2025 release said plans were underway to launch in the UAE and North Africa. Through the company’s later 2026 notes on Europe and Canada, no matching store opening for Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or anywhere else in the Emirates turned up.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The Jordan door: CoCo named Amman as its first official Middle East store and published the Al-Istethmar Street address.
• The Halal kit: The company said in 2024 that all materials on the regional menu are Halal-certified, and it repeated that for Amman.
• The Europe paper trail: CoCo kept issuing store counts and partner notes for the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Canada in 2026.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A UAE shop: Promised in the Amman release, not followed by a dated store announcement in the company notes reviewed here.
• Egypt as a shop: The April 20, 2026 Europe note says CoCo expanded into Egypt and Armenia that year, without a city, street, or opening date.

Absence of a press note is not proof a kitchen never opened. It does mean CoCo has not done for Dubai or Cairo what it did for Amman: put a date, a city, and a franchise pitch on the record.

Europe Took the Headlines After Jordan

The next detailed CoCo release in this file is not a Gulf opening. On April 20, 2026, the company announced a partnership with Bubble Bar, an Antwerp-born operator from 2014, to push Benelux growth. CoCo said it had five shops in the Netherlands and planned 17, and three in Belgium, in Brussels, Antwerp, and Leuven, with a target of 14.

Warren Chen, CoCo’s general manager, put the confidence on Europe, not Amman. He said the company was encouraged by the market’s momentum and was building with regional partners. The same note listed Berlin and Düsseldorf as open, Frankfurt for the first half of 2026, and mid-year shops in Budapest, Amsterdam’s Bijlmer, and Malaga.

In July 2025, before Amman opened, CoCo had already said it wanted to double European stores in 24 months. On Sept. 7, 2026, it said it would exhibit at Toronto’s National Franchise Show and that it had opened seven new Canadian shops in the prior 12 months, three in Vancouver, three in Toronto, and one in Winnipeg. The energy in the paper trail went to partners who already had a map, not to the UAE city CoCo named in 2025.

Who Pays for the Next Cup

The Amman shop is a customer-facing kitchen, and it is also a showroom. CoCo’s 2024 Middle East note offered multi-store deals and country exclusivity, plus ingredients supplied by CoCo so a partner could hold food costs still. The 2025 Amman release repeated the offer: brand, marketing, operations help, and a training kit.

Wong’s other line in that release made the buyer explicit. The opening, he said, was about serving bubble tea while building a franchise setup that moves the region’s business leaders forward. The drink is the demo. The sale is a territory.

Partners who want that kit are still being sent to the CoCo franchise application page. The licensed address CoCo has actually put on a map in this region remains Al-Istethmar Street in Amman. Until a UAE or North Africa shop gets the same treatment, that is the whole official Middle East network.