Walk any Chinese commercial street and count the tea shops. There will be more of them than anything else, frequently several branches of the same chain within a few hundred metres, each with a queue and a shelf of sealed cups waiting for collection.
This site already covers what the chains are and how to specify sugar and ice. What it has never covered is the letter that started appearing on those menus in 2024 — and that letter is the most interesting thing about the trade, because it is a piece of public health policy that was tried in China before almost anywhere else.
The letter on the menu#
Since March 2024, drinks in Shanghai have carried a 营养选择 (yíng yǎng xuǎn zé, "Nutrition Choice") grade: a single letter from A to D, A being the most recommended and D the least.
It is not a hygiene rating, a quality mark or a customer review score. It grades one thing only: what is in the cup, measured against four components that the scheme treats as things to limit.
- Non-dairy sugars — sugar that is added rather than naturally present in milk.
- Saturated fat.
- Trans fat.
- Non-sugar sweeteners — the substitutes, which count against a drink rather than for it.
Here are the sugar thresholds, per 100 ml, which are the ones that decide most drinks:
| Grade | Non-dairy sugar per 100 ml |
|---|---|
| A | Not more than 0.5 g |
| B | Over 0.5 g and up to 5 g |
| C | Over 5 g and up to 11.5 g |
| D | 11.5 g or more |
A grade A drink must also keep saturated fat at or under 0.75 g per 100 ml and trans fat at or under 0.3 g, and must contain no non-sugar sweeteners at all.
The rule that makes it useful#
This is the part worth carrying, and it is not obvious from looking at the letter.
The overall grade is the worst of the four component grades, not an average. A drink that scores C on sugar and A on everything else is a C. One bad component decides the cup.
That is what makes the letter honest and what makes a "zero sugar" claim insufficient on its own: a drink can carry no sugar and still be dragged down by fat, or by the sweeteners used to replace the sugar. The single letter is doing work that reading the ingredient list would not do for you at the counter.
Where you will actually see it#
Be precise about this, because it is a local scheme and it would be wrong to describe it as national law.
It began as a Shanghai pilot run by the municipal health authorities, with a first group of four chains. From August 2024 the same labelling was extended through the food-delivery platforms, so it appears well beyond Shanghai when you order in an app rather than at a counter. At the end of 2025 the Chinese Nutrition Society published a group standard for nutrition-choice labelling on freshly made drinks, which is the step that turns a municipal experiment into something other cities and chains can adopt.
So: expect it reliably in Shanghai and in delivery apps, sporadically elsewhere, and expect more of it rather than less.
Ordering, in practice#
The mechanics are the same in every chain and require no Mandarin.
- Order in the app, not at the till. Every major chain runs a mini-programme, which is the same pattern as almost everything else transactional in China — inside WeChat or Alipay, no install.
- Pick the shop, the drink, then the options. Sugar level and ice level are separate choices and both matter; the vocabulary for them is set out on the drinks page.
- Pay, and you get a number. The cup appears on the collection shelf with your number on it, usually within a few minutes.
- At a counter, point. Photo menus are universal, and holding up fingers for the sugar level works.
The queue you see outside a shop is frequently not a queue to order. It is people waiting for numbers that were ordered from wherever they were standing ten minutes earlier.
What to actually drink#
Without naming figures the shops themselves set, the useful distinctions are these.
Fresh-leaf tea with milk is the category that has taken over: real brewed tea, fresh milk rather than powder, no tapioca unless you ask. If you have only tried the sweet powdered version sold abroad, this is a different drink and worth trying on its own terms.
Fruit tea is tea with real fruit pulp in it, often citrus or grape, and it is the lighter option in summer.
The classic with tapioca pearls — the thing English calls bubble tea — is still everywhere and is the sweetest end of the range.
A note on scale. These chains sell an enormous volume at a low price, which is why the health labelling exists at all. The drink is a daily habit for a large part of urban China rather than an occasional treat, and that is the fact the grading scheme was designed around.
Reading the trade, not just the cup#
A pattern worth noticing: China posts a surprising amount of official information in plain sight in food premises, and visitors read almost none of it. The cartoon face grading a restaurant's hygiene is one. The rules governing lighting and weighing in a produce market are another. The letter on a drinks menu is the third and the newest.
None of them needs Chinese to use. All three are more reliable than the frontage.
Frequently asked questions#
What do the letters A, B, C and D mean on Chinese drink menus?#
They are a nutrition grade called 营养选择 ("Nutrition Choice"), A being the most recommended and D the least. It rates non-dairy sugars, saturated fat, trans fat and non-sugar sweeteners — not taste, quality or hygiene.
How is the drink grade calculated?#
By taking the worst of the four component grades rather than averaging them. A drink graded C on sugar and A on everything else is a C overall, so one component decides the letter.
How much sugar is in a grade A drink in China?#
No more than 0.5 g of non-dairy sugar per 100 ml. Grade B runs up to 5 g, grade C up to 11.5 g, and 11.5 g or more is grade D. Grade A also requires no non-sugar sweeteners at all.
Is the drink grading system used everywhere in China?#
No. It began as a Shanghai municipal pilot in March 2024 and was extended through food-delivery platforms from August 2024, so you see it reliably in Shanghai and in apps and patchily elsewhere. A national nutrition-society standard for the labelling followed at the end of 2025.
How do I order milk tea in China without speaking Chinese?#
Use the chain's mini-programme inside WeChat or Alipay: pick the shop, the drink, the sugar level and the ice level, pay, and collect the cup by number. At a counter, photo menus and pointing work fine.
Is Chinese milk tea the same as bubble tea?#
Not quite. Bubble tea with tapioca pearls is one item in a much wider category. Most of what Chinese chains now sell is freshly brewed tea with fresh milk or with real fruit, made to order, with pearls as an option rather than the default.