Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

Reuters recently ran a story about Chinese tea chains pushing into the US. The article argues that while the obstacles are real, brands such as Chagee, Chahalo, Molly Tea and Shanghai Auntea Jenny are betting that the formula that worked at home can also work abroad. After rising in China's crowded tea-drink market, they are now opening US stores or announcing expansion plans, leaning on fast rollout, and a steady stream of flavor innovation.

At first glance, Chinese milk tea becoming the lead character in an American retail story seems like a simple tale of trend-chasing and new consumer demand. But it also points to a more profound paradox in contemporary globalization: some products cross borders precisely because they ask so little of the customer. What is a drink, after all? When someone buys a beverage, they don't need to understand the values, historical context or religious beliefs associated with its origin.They only need to answer one question: Is it good? This is the peculiar power of a drink: it bypasses everything that demands identity or ideological agreement and goes straight to pleasure. That doesn't mean American young people are becoming "more Chinese," or Chinese young people "more American." It means both are moving toward a shared, emerging "global urban palate." Its features are not abstract. They are specific: sweet, cold, layered, customizable, portable and designed for social life. 

Despite differing views, a New Yorker and a Shanghainese woman may surprisingly agree on a "good drink": photogenic, customizable and trendy - a consumer experience for modern life. This overlap is one of globalization's most intimate phenomena: young people across very different societies are co-creating a daily culture that belongs to no single nation. It is shaped by social media, supply chains, pricing strategies and product R&D. A recipe and marketing tempo proven in Shenzhen can be transplanted to New York relatively quickly - not because the two places share the same history, but because the receiving audience has been trained by the internet into similar expectations about flavor, novelty and "value for money." In that sense, the two beverage cultures have not truly fused. Instead, both are being absorbed by a stronger logic: the consumer logic of modern urban taste. We drink the same product and create an illusion that "we can understand each other." That illusion rests on an elemental, direct consensus: it tastes good.

This may be globalization at its most honest. Two distant civilizations don't need to change their inner cores to move closer at the level of consumption. A Chinese entrepreneur and an American customer can complete a transaction with ease while still viewing each other's worldviews through glass. It is precisely this condition - commercial intimacy alongside differences in value - that allows globalization to keep running. Deep communication and mutual understanding between civilizations remain difficult. But the mutual seepage of everyday life continues, like thin streams gathering into a current. KFC entered China 38 years ago. Today, Chinese milk tea has entered the US. This shows that we share our pursuit of comfort and modernity in life. Every cup sold tells a quiet truth about the era, and that truth, repeated day after day, is subtly reshaping the direction of globalization itself, which will ultimately affect the future of China-US relations.

The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on X @dinggangchina