I paid for access, not tea: What CHAGEE taught me about brand desire
Here is something I did not expect to admit publicly: I am a brand strategist who spent $59.80 on tea and plushies across two separate trips to a museum pop-up. And on the first trip, I left with nothing.
I want to talk about why I went back.
In January 2026, CHAGEE launched Garden of Senses: A Tea Reverie at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore - a multi-sensory exhibition developed in collaboration with ACM and the Singapore Tourism Board, exploring tea as a cultural ritual shaped across centuries. Running until 7 June 2026, there are art installations, historical tea vessels sitting alongside modern CHAGEE cups, immersive soundscapes built around the act of brewing.
But I did not go for the art. I went because CHAGEE was running a pop-up alongside the exhibition and ACM All Access ticket holders ($12 for Singaporeans) were the only people eligible to buy the limited-edition light blue Pony Plushie Charm bundle. Walk-in customers at the pop-up could only buy the brown variant. The blue one required the museum ticket. Essentially, it required participation in the full experience.
I bought the ticket without a second thought and by the time I showed up at ACM, BOTH the blue and brown bundles were sold out. I left disappointed in a way that was, frankly, disproportionate to the situation.
When CHAGEE announced on their socials that stock had returned, I paid another $12 and went back. Bought the blue bundle and the brown one while I was there. Two drinks, two plushies and the very specific satisfaction of someone who finally got in!
What CHAGEE actually built here
The plushie is not the point. It never was.
The Pony Plushie Charm has a story behind it — the horse pays tribute to the animals that carried tea along ancient trade routes across Southwest China, the Merlion detail nods to Singapore's heritage, the tiny teapot references vessels from the ACM collection. It is a $17.90 keychain with genuine cultural architecture behind it. That matters. Scarcity without meaning is just manipulation, and people can feel the difference.
What CHAGEE engineered with this partnership was a layered condition for belonging. The exhibition positioned them not as a bubble tea chain doing a pop-up, but as a legitimate narrator of tea culture — an international brand with enough cultural confidence to collaborate with a national museum and the Singapore Tourism Board on what ACM called its first in-depth curatorial partnership with an international brand. That is a significant repositioning move for a brand that most Singaporeans associate with a takeaway cup.
And then they attached exclusivity to it. The blue plushie was only accessible to people who had bought into the full cultural experience. That decision turned a merchandise item into a signal — of participation, of having been there, of belonging to the version of the brand that went deeper than a queue at the mall.
The Da Hong Pao oat milk tea I ordered is excellent, for the record. But it was not why I was there.
“People rarely stay loyal or evangelise products, they stay loyal to identities and evangelise what owning them says about them.”
The thing most founders miss
I work with founder-led companies at inflection points. The businesses that are trying to figure out why their product is not converting the way it should, why customers are not coming back or why referrals feel slow despite the work they are clearly putting in.
The honest answer, most of the time, is that the brand has invested in the product and not enough in how the product makes people feel. Features can be replicated. Pricing can be matched. But the feeling of being inside something - of having earned access, of being the kind of person who participates in this brand's world - that is much harder to copy.
CHAGEE did not manufacture my loyalty through a points programme or a promotional email. They built a cultural moment, made belonging to it feel meaningful and then made part of it slightly harder to reach. The mild difficulty was the point. It made getting there feel like it counted.
I am not suggesting every founder needs a museum partnership and a limited-edition plushie. But the underlying question is worth sitting with: what would make someone feel that being part of your brand is worth something beyond the transaction? What is the version of your brand that customers feel proud to belong to, that they would go back for twice, that they would tell someone about not because you asked them to but because the story reflects well on them?
That is the design work that happens before the marketing. And it is the work that most growth strategies skip entirely.
“Brand desire that is built well does not feel like manipulation when you are inside it. It feels like participation and it feels like yours. ”
Why I went back
I know what CHAGEE did. I can name every mechanism they used. I went back anyway with a cheerful heart, immediately, without having to be convinced.
That is the thing about brand desire: when built well, it does not feel like manipulation when you are inside it. It feels like participation and it feels like yours.
Garden of Senses: A Tea Reverie runs at the Asian Civilisations Museum until 7 June 2026. If you are in Singapore and you have not been, go. The brown plushie bundle is still available to walk-ins at the pop-up. The blue one may or may not be in stock - and honestly, that uncertainty is part of the point. The feeling that you might just miss it is exactly what makes getting there feel like it counts.
I help founder-led brands become more desirable, more referable, and harder to ignore.
I’m Theresa Lim, founder of The House of HUI, a brand strategy and positioning consultancy based in Singapore.
