By Cambria Kelly and Rosie Lu
In a world of sugar-loaded boba drinks and syrup-heavy blends, Heytea flips the script. Instead of masking flavor with toppings, this international tea chain makes one thing clear: the tea itself is the star.
Longjing Milk Tea
Longjing tea showed up looking like an average green tea… then pulled a full plot twist. Instead of grassy and light, it tasted almost cacao-y to me—rich, nutty, and earthy with serious aroma. It bears a resemblance to hojicha, but makes it silky and richer. The texture is so creamy it glides across your taste buds, while still maintaining a very tea-forward flavor. Even while I had multiple fancier-seeming drinks right at my fingertips, this one stole the spotlight—and my heart.
Crisp Grape Boom
The coming of spring, the blooming of flowers, a gentle breeze brushing against my cheeks. This is the first sip feeling, the almost impossibly fragrant grape flavor hitting you like an epiphany and the cold slushy texture adding to the refreshment. This drink uses Kyoho grapes, Japan’s highest-quality variant. My one critique is that the drink melts fast and loses its slushy texture, leaving behind an overly sweet and one-note grape juice that could be diluted.
Pistachio King Jasmine Milk Tea
Don’t judge a book by its cover—this chartreuse and white cup might look suspiciously dull and artificial, but it offers some of the most refined flavor I’ve had from a cream top drink. The nutty pistachio stands out while harmonizing with the intensely floral jasmine tea. That being said, I wouldn’t have minded drinking an entire cup of just the beautifully concentrated jasmine milk tea, because it truly is a king of its kind.
Cloud Matcha Latte
Heytea’s matcha is bold—very bold. There’s plenty of powder, which gives it a strong, grassy intensity. It’s less sweet and more bitter in flavor, but the more sage-toned color (versus a vibrant emerald green) indicates lower quality matcha, which was apparent in the slightly grainy texture and its tendency to settle in a separate layer at the bottom. While this may not reinvent matcha, it delivers a solid, straightforward cup with good depth. It’s simple. It’s basic. But it’s still good if you’re just looking for a strong classic matcha taste, and you don’t have any to make at home.
Across these four drinks we got to try, one thing was obvious: at Heytea, there is no “variations on a theme” concept. It’s not just a generic tea base, a few artificial syrups, and mass-produced topping options. Whether you’re into floral jasmine, nutty Longjing, or intense matcha, they’ve got a top-notch concoction for everyone.