“I don’t even know what I’m in line for, but I saw all these people,” says a woman in the queue for a new Manchester city centre cafe that’s attracted huge crowds since opening its doors on Piccadilly Gardens last weekend.
I dart her a long, quizzical look, but feel like I can’t really judge her because this is my third attempt at reviewing HEYTEA, the Chinese tea chain which made its debut in the city last weekend. When I first came across it last Saturday, I also didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
The chain, which has more than 1,000 stores in China, several Singapore stores, and a selection of international outposts, is known for its signature cheese tea range, a cold tea topped with a foamy layer of milk, sweet or salt cream cheese and whipping cream.
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Also known as milk cap tea or cheese mousse tea, it’s just one of several beverages they serve alongside bubble, fruit and other milk-based tea options. Fruit and bubble tea choices have boomed in recent years and having tried my first bubble tea - also known as boba - at A Nice Sip in the Arndale last summer, I’ve fully jumped on the boba tea bandwagon.
Granted HEYTEA’s offer is a little different, and their tagline says they’re ‘the OG of New Asian Tea’, which not only rhymes but piques my interest. I’m not the only one interested in what they’re doing too.
On opening day last Saturday, hundreds queued up outside the new cafe for a first taste, and for a chance to bag the buy-one–get-one-free offer which was available until Monday. When I went this week, they were still doing an offer, but this time it was buy-on-get-one-half-price - and the crowds still flocked.
The psychology of queueing has always interested me, and having covered not only this opening but Popeyes and Sides recently, I do wonder how big a role good social media marketing plays in creating a hype around these very ‘Instagrammable’ places, where having a picture with a gallon of tea with floating bits of fruit in it or a ‘viral’ chicken sandwich is more important than actually sampling it.
So, after two failed attempts - Saturday due to the rain and Wednesday due to the sheer volume of people - I tried again. The sun is beating down on me and the woman in front who doesn’t know why she’s here and I can’t help but question my life choices. Two girls behind seem pretty relaxed about waiting - I decide they may be students or are taking a long lunch break.
The man who appears to be looking after crowd control says he doesn’t know how long it will take for the queue to go down, putting out a wild guess of 20 minutes into the ether. I pull a face and he tells me there’s a QR code on the door and I can order ahead and simply pick up at the till.
I give it a go but it turns out there’s too many people doing the same and I’m presented with the spinning wheel of doom. I slope back into the queue.
Peering inside, a brigade of stylishly dressed baristas flutter past one another as plastic cups of tea in brightly hued shades of yellow, red and purple are sent flying across the counter, joining a range of beige-coloured milk teas with black tapioca bubbles swimming around at the bottom of the cup.
To distract myself from the heatstroke, I busy myself reading up on the history of the brand, while also watching videos playing on the screen over the counter of similar queues at HEYTEA’s other branches . I can’t decide if it’s meant as a morale boost or a reminder that we’ve all lost our minds queuing for a brew.
The website talks about how the concept started out as a tiny tea shop on a lane called Jiangbianli in Guangdong in China, and how milk tea shops a decade ago commonly used ‘cheap’ ingredients. HEYTEA’s founder Neo wanted to use fresh milk and real tea and created the first-ever cheese tea in his kitchen.
The idea? To soften the overpowering fresh tea taste with a layer of fine cheese foam made with real milk and create an aftertaste that ‘perfectly catered to the young and hip crowd’. Today, this new-style tea has blown up, allowing them to expand and open more than 3,000 stores worldwide.
Even after poring over the brand’s well-crafted marketing spiel, the queue hasn’t moved and so the sign on the door encouraging me to ‘Live Joy’, doesn’t have the intended effect. You would think by the time I did get to the front of the queue - 30 minutes after joining it - I would be ready to order, but the choice is almost overwhelming.
Finally deciding to order one fruit tea and one milk tea, I go for the Cheese Grape Boom Tea (£6.90) and the Supreme Brown Sugar Bobo Milk Tea (£5.90), which comes to £9.90 with the discount, which still feels insane. There’s a staggering amount of options available, with strawberry, mulberry, grapefruit and mango all on the bill too - and talk of boom, blast and bobo at every turn.
Boba or bubble tea is a Taiwanese invention, first concocted in the 80s, but which took hold in the States in the 90s, arriving here in the 2000s. There’s usually two kinds - fruit-based or milk-based, varying in sweetness, with the milk-based teas featuring flavoured tapioca pearls at the bottom.
Like Babybel, burger cheese slices and fizzy drinks, I’m not convinced it’s good for me, but I’m on the home stretch. Perched by the window, I wait another ten minutes before I see my drink order come up on the screen - it’s a bit like waiting for McDonald’s but takes longer.
I try the milk tea first as I selected for it to be served hot, which on reflection seems an odd choice given the weather we’re having. Piercing the lid and dunking the straw straight in, I momentarily forget that I asked her for the hottest temperature, so as I take my first sip I suddenly feel very flushed as it dawns on me that I’m slurping molten tea and squishy bits of tapioca are flying up the straw like a game of paintball.
All the while, the girl next to me is trying to get me to post a picture on Instagram of my drinks so she can take my receipt to the cashier and nab some stickers. I have no idea what is happening.
Once my taste buds stop feeling like sandpaper, I try again. It’s actually very nice, and my choice to have reduced sweetness is the right one. The milk is creamy but not sickly, while the tapioca balls have a rounded flavour and elegantly glide up the straw.
I can feel the eyes of the woman next to me burning into me, as she continues her campaign to secure the stickers. I relent and let her post a picture to Chinese Instagram, but find myself armed with her phone and my receipt at the till, before being handed some Manchester bee plaques and stickers. She can have them.
I take the second tea back to the car for some peace and quiet. As far as appearances go, it sort of reminds me of one of those ice creams you get at the seaside, the Mr Whippy with mixed slush - but it's nothing like that.
There's bits of grape floating about, the very welcome presence of ice cubes and that signature cream top to contend with. It sounds like there might be too much going on, but it's actually an ideal summer's day drink.
The flavours are balanced and not too sweet but it takes my brain a bit to compute whether I'm eating or drinking. One minute, a bit of grape shoots up the straw, the next a bit of ice, and then finally the cream top. There's a lot going on.
In truth I don't know if you're meant to mix it all together, let the ice melt or drink as served, and I don't think it actually matters. Both drinks have softened the blow of losing nearly an hour of my life and burning my tongue.
Should anyone be waiting three quarters of an hour for a a fruit tea, potentially not, but you also don't have to - you don't have to join the queue. If you like this sort of thing, go for it, but you'll have to make your peace with the queue for a little while longer.
