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Unlike the strong global café culture,the tea industry still suffers from an ageing user base and has failed to engage younger consumers due to a lack of experience and differentiation of tea products or services.However,considering the current trend of‘health and wellness’,tea could have a good market opportunity to overcome its lack of strong penetration,by promoting its health benefits.Chinese tea and its associated culture can in particular provide both physical and mental health benefits.Therefore,it is necessary to consider how tea houses can create the right strategies to satisfy customers.This research paper identifies the value of ‘experience’ design and cultural heritage as well as customers’ expectations and demands regarding the experience of a tea house.This research aims ‘to create a design-led branding model based on Chinese heritage to establish a clear identity for a Chinese tea house in order to increase the awareness of Chinese culture and the benefits of tea therapy’.A four-stage research process,comprising both quantitative and qualitative research,was used from the double diamond design process model（Design Council,2005）.The main research tools used in this research were: a consumer survey questionnaire,observation,case studies,and expert interviews.The results of the research revealed that‘experience’ design plays a crucial role in establishing customer awareness and creating a good brand image for a Chinese tea house.Especially,customer experience can be enhanced by creating strong touch points and brand identities based on Chinese heritage.As consumers are primarily emotional decision makers,an overall experience should be developed based on the understanding of consumer needs.This experience needs to be based on the effective use of visual and verbal expression,as well as sensory appeals.The essence of a tea house is not about offering an isolated product,but about teadrinking and the tea house experience.The overall conclusion of this research is that Chinese tea houses should deliver a brand story and engage customers into their brand through experience design and a strong brand identity based on Chinese heritage.This study builds a new concept of a tea house through a proposed design-led branding model.It is hoped that such a tea house would improve emotional satisfaction and provide the benefits of tea therapy,as well as the awareness of Chinese culture.