The Taiwanese premium tea chain is opening a Pleasanton location in August 2026 — its sixth Bay Area store in roughly a year and a half — with a seventh already listed as a work in progress.

Chicha San Chen, the Taiwanese premium tea chain, is opening a sixth Bay Area location in Pleasanton this month, according to its Northern California store directory (external source, opens in a new tab), which lists the shop as "Opening Soon in August 2026" at an address the chain hasn't yet disclosed. The same page carries a seventh Bay Area store as a "Work-In-Progress."

That would extend an unusually fast build-out. The directory shows five stores already open: the chain's first Northern California outpost at 20688 Stevens Creek Blvd. in Cupertino; a Berkeley shop at 2400A Bancroft Way, a block off the UC Berkeley campus; a Daly City counter at 309 Gellert Blvd.; a Fremont location at 43731 Boscell Rd.; and a San Jose store at 1701 Lundy Ave. The Berkeley shop, which the Daily Californian covered (external source, opens in a new tab) when it opened last year, sits in one of the densest bubble-tea corridors in the region.

The chain sells itself as the upmarket end of a crowded category. Where value operators like Mixue — which opened its first Bay Area store in Sunnyvale last month — chase volume on dollar drinks, Chicha San Chen markets a tea-house experience: its directory advertises complimentary Lishan oolong tastings and a "A Wish of Tea Sealed" ceremony alongside the standard milk-tea-and-tapioca menu. Brewing hours run 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 or 10 p.m. daily.

The map is the tell. Cupertino, Fremont, Daly City, San Jose and now Pleasanton are not the marquee downtown corridors where imported chains plant a flagship for the opening-day line; they're high-density suburban retail markets where a premium boba habit is already set. Chicha San Chen is betting that demand for a loose-leaf oolong at a premium price runs deeper in the strip malls than it does downtown — and it's putting six-plus leases behind that read. Whether the Pleasanton store makes its August window, and where the seventh lands, are the next things to watch.