At the end of 2006, Costa set up Yueda Café (Shanghai) Catering Management Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, and opened its first store in China on the pedestrian street of Nanjing East Road.

In the second half of 2008, Costa set up Hualian Café Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. in Beijing, officially entering the Beijing market and rapidly developing a chain of 43 stores in Beijing.

In April 2011, Whitbread Group announced a new five-year plan to double Costa's coverage network to 3,500 stores and double global sales to 1.3 billion pounds. Obviously, Costa's expansion in China will be directly related to whether it can reach these goals.

Unlike the American coffee culture represented by Starbucks, the first mover in the Chinese market, Costa claims to have Italian origins and a "European aristocratic flavor," thus positioning itself "slightly above Starbucks. In addition, Costa and Starbucks and other coffee chains advocate "global chain standardization" is different, its style in different countries and regions will be based on local tastes and aesthetics to determine.

After five or six years in China, Costa has embarked on a period of expansion, marked by its move into Terminal 3 (T3) at the Beijing Capital Airport, where Starbucks has withdrawn. In Costa Coffee's view, the Chinese market is an "untapped gold mine". According to the public data of Beijing Coffee Industry Association, the annual growth rate of coffee consumption in China is about 15%, much higher than the global 2%. According to the average level of international coffee consumption market, China's mainland coffee market consumption amounted to about 1 trillion yuan, but the current annual coffee sales of only 70 billion yuan.

Costa Asia President Boshi Miao (Paul Smith) claimed that the number of Costa stores will reach 2,500 in 2018, and take away 1/3 of the market share of China's coffee chain market. At present, the Chinese market, Costa take "close" tactics, almost every store is next to Starbucks. This is very similar to McDonald's next to KFC. In China, Costa adopts the tactic of "close to", which not only saves the cost of market analysis and investigation, but also makes use of the preconceived position of Starbucks in the minds of consumers to increase their own popularity. Ltd. is mainly responsible for the development and operation of major cities in East China, South China and West China, such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Wuhan, and is capitalized 51% and 49% by Whitbread Group and Yueda Group respectively. Hualian Café Café Management Co., Ltd. is mainly responsible for the development and operation of Costa's restaurants in North China, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, etc., and is established by Whitbread Group of the United Kingdom and Hualian Group of Beijing with a capital injection of 50% each.