Tiger Sugar Brand Guidelines: The Taichung Chain Named for Brown Sugar Stripes

A brown sugar drink and a striped cup.

Tiger Sugar, 老虎堂 in Chinese, opened its first shop in Taichung, in central Taiwan, in November 2017. English Wikipedia gives that month and city, and so did the Malaysian news site SAYS in January 2019, which called it “a relatively young company.” The New York community paper QNS reported the same opening date in May 2019 and named Siman Yang as president of Tiger Sugar.

The name describes the drink. Tiger Sugar’s signature is a cup of fresh milk poured over boba cooked in brown sugar syrup, with the syrup coating the inside of the cup so that it runs into dark stripes. QNS described those “tiger stripes” as a layer of sugar coated on the inner side of the cup, and SAYS said the stripes appear when the milk is poured in. The Daily Meal, in November 2022, explained that “tiger” bubble tea as a style takes its name from that pattern, and that Tiger Sugar is “the self-proclaimed creator” of it. Citing the Michelin Guide, it said the style was made popular mostly by Tiger Sugar.

The menu is narrow by design. The Daily Meal reported that the chain calls its signature “Tiger Black Sugar” and says the menu took about ten years to settle; its top seller, QNS and SAYS agreed, is brown sugar boba milk with cream mousse. English Wikipedia quotes the food site Tasting Table on the chain’s “creamy brown sugar flavor and unique tiger stripe pattern.”

From Taichung to Flushing and Leeds.

The chain left Taiwan within a year. English Wikipedia says it has operated in Hong Kong since 2018, as well as in Macau and Singapore. SAYS reported that its first Malaysian outlet opened at the Sunway Pyramid mall on New Year’s Day 2019 and was formally launched on 4 January 2019, by which time the brand had also reached the Philippines.

North America followed. On 10 May 2019 QNS reported the grand opening of Tiger Sugar’s first North American store, in Flushing, Queens, with a dragon dance and ribbon-cutting; the paper said the brand had more than 40 stores, and Calvin Sun, chief executive of Tiger Sugar New York, called Flushing its 48th. Sun told the paper that the brown sugar is imported from Taiwan to a formula he called “very secret and unique,” and described the drink as “a third-generation bubble tea.” English Wikipedia adds a shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown that same year, and says there were roughly two dozen shops in the United States as of 2022, from Cupertino, Los Angeles, Seattle and Beaverton, Oregon, to Arizona, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Ohio. QNS listed China, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Canada among the markets it had reached by then. In Canada it has traded in Toronto and Vancouver, and in the United Kingdom in Leeds.

The process is part of the pitch. SAYS reported that Tiger Sugar says its syrup is a blend of four Taiwanese brown sugar syrups, that it uses fresh milk and ice made from filtered water, and that its pearls are cooked in small batches. The Daily Meal added that, by the chain’s account, the pearls take about eight hours to prepare, and that the company uses fresh milk rather than creamer, which it says gives a savoury note against the smokiness of the brown sugar. Citing the Michelin Guide, the same article said the drink is meant to recall the flavours of traditional Taiwanese desserts.

How tea-drink chains present themselves.

Bubble tea and tea-drink chains sell a drink that is made in front of the customer, so most of their public image is built around the cup. On their own websites, Taiwanese brands such as Chatime and Gong Cha lead with pictures of individual drinks and group them into named ranges and short lists: Gong Cha calls its top five drinks worldwide the “Famous Five,” and Chatime’s US website sorts its menu into ranges such as Signatures, Milk Tea Classics and Fruity.

Drink and staff names do much of the brand work. Chatime’s US website builds its copy on tea puns, calling its counter staff “T-Ristas,” while Gong Cha names drinks by their tea, fruit and toppings, from milk foam to “QQ” jelly. Store fronts and menu boards appear in the companies’ franchise pages and news posts, where a new store design or a first store in a new country is presented as an event.

Ordering apps and online shops are now part of the picture. In 2020 the Taipei Times reported that Chatime’s parent, La Kaffa International, had begun taking orders through an app with a software partner, and in 2026 Nation’s Restaurant News reported that Gong Cha was rolling out a “digital kitchen.” For a designer, these tools are part of the brand as much as the cup or the counter.

Behind the cups are corporate histories that are often more complicated than the store fronts suggest. Many chains grew through franchising, with regional partners running whole countries, and some have changed owners several times. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it now, and how it is sold — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A name that is also a description.

Tiger Sugar’s name joins an animal to the ingredient that defines its menu, and the drink explains both: the tiger is the pattern of dark syrup stripes, and the sugar is the brown sugar that makes them. The Daily Meal noted that the stripes stay on the inside of the cup just long enough for drinkers to admire them and take a picture. The tiger also appears as a character: QNS reported that the first customers at the Flushing opening were offered a Tiger Sugar figurine along with Taiwanese brown sugar biscuits.

That visual has travelled faster than the company. The Daily Meal noted in 2022 that, by the chain’s own account, its signature drink drew many imitators because of its striking look, and that the company still describes its version as “an unforgettable taste of Taiwan.” Citing the Michelin Guide, it said customers had queued for as long as three hours, and SAYS reported queues of at least an hour in Taiwan. English Wikipedia records that the US site Eat This, Not That included Tiger Sugar in a 2024 list of ten bubble tea chains.

The identity is therefore narrow and consistent: one hero drink, a name that explains it, and a cup that shows it. The range stays close to brown sugar, fresh milk and pearls, and the same striped cup has carried the brand from Taichung to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Flushing and Leeds.

For a design guide, Tiger Sugar shows how a single product feature, here a pattern of syrup inside a cup, can become the whole identity. Compare CoCo, a Taiwanese franchise with a much broader menu, and The Alley, another bubble tea chain with its roots in Taiwan. For this guide we use brown sugar, cream mousse and lacquer black with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Tiger Sugar’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.