After quietly breaking through 100 stores, Heytea arrived at Apple's headquarters. On August 1, Apple's headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area welcomed a new neighbor - Heytea (Cupertino store). Some netizens discovered that its UI design pays tribute to Apple's rainbow colors, and some sharp-eyed people found a quote from Steve Jobs on the dining tissue: MAKE A DENTIN THE UNIVERSE (Leave a trace in the universe). Another netizen dug out the Moments posted by Heytea founder Nie Yunchen in 2021 and found that he himself was deeply influenced by Steve Jobs' product philosophy.
Picture | The opening day of Heytea’s Cupertino Main St store in Cupertino, California, USA
Heytea’s overseas market is quietly accelerating. Ifeng.com Technology learned that as of now, the total number of Heytea stores in overseas markets has exceeded 100. In the past year, the number of Heytea's overseas stores has increased more than six times. In the largest market, the United States, Heytea has opened 30 stores.
In recent years, overseas has become a new frontier for China’s tea drinking competition. In May of this year, Cha Ji, who wants to be China's Starbucks, opened its first store in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. Generous advertising was spread across every corner of the Westfield Century City mall, and the store was even more crowded in the first week. Two months later, Luckin Coffee also arrived and opened two stores in New York. Different from the previous wave of overseas expansion, such as Michelle Bingcheng, which focused on Southeast Asia, this time Chinese tea beverage brands entered markets such as North America and the United Kingdom. Almost immediately, they entered top business districts with dense crowds. The common characteristics of these business districts are strong consumption power and high taste.
Heytea first entered Singapore in 2018, and officially opened overseas franchises in 2023, and has successively entered London, UK, New York, USA, and Melbourne, Australia. However, it was not until last year that its expansion speed really picked up. The LAB store it opened in Times Square in New York at the beginning of this year was a landmark turning point. The "laboratory" store, as the name suggests, is responsible for innovation. For example, Heytea launched a number of new limited products in this LAB store in New York - Gongfu3 (black tea beef with pistachio cloud tops). Milk) and Matcha0 (Matcha Pistachio Snow Ice), named in the form of "tea base + number". The numbers 0-6 correspond to different product types and corresponding flavor intensity. 6 is a more friendly choice for people with lactose intolerance, 1 represents pure tea, and 0 represents snow ice. At first glance, it looks very scientific and laboratory-like.
The price of such a gimmicky cup of milk tea is comparable to that of Starbucks, at US$5-7 per cup. At this price, you can only get a mediocre latte at Starbucks in the United States.
So much so, that on the day of the opening of the first Heytea New York LAB store, the queue stretched directly onto the street. Some consumers described it as "a dense crowd of people inside and outside the store." Ifeng.com Technology learned that the sales of Heytea New York LAB store exceeded 3,500 cups on the first day, and the current daily average is stable at more than 2,000 cups.
Is Heytea going the way of LABUBU?
On July 21, 2025, BLACKPINK member Lisa posted a photo of a new Ferrari car on Instagram, and a cup of milk tea accidentally came into the picture. Later, Heytea officials came to claim that Lisa was drinking the triple supreme matcha latte, a new product just launched in North America. This new product was launched in China as early as October last year.
Lisa has more than 100 million fans on Instagram, and her ability to sell goods is evident. The triple thick smear quickly became popular overseas and is often sold out. This situation also reminds people of Lisa's earlier scandal with Labubu. In April 2024, Lisa uploaded a photo with Labubu to Instagram. Related topics exploded on social media in Southeast Asia, triggering more local celebrities in Thailand to follow suit. Labubu has since become Thailand's new top celebrity.
After that, it was the explosion of Bubble Mart behind Labubu in the global market. Interestingly, North America and the United Kingdom are also the main locations of Bubble Mart’s global market, coinciding with Heytea.
In terms of landing strategy, Heytea is obviously adopting a high-flying strategy: go wherever there are large crowds and strong spending power, usually in urban landmark business districts, such as Hollywood, Cupertino and South Coast Plaza in Los Angeles.
Products and IP were once the foundation for Bubble Mart's overseas explosion. Bubble Mart management once said in interviews with media such as Phoenix.com that for Bubble Mart, product is IP. In addition, it has done a lot of localization work. "We meet with Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Filipinos, and colleagues from Europe and the United States every day. (Transnational collaboration) is a process of accumulation," Wang Ning once told Ifeng Technology. From recruiting to opening stores, they have accumulated a lot of experience in cross-border collaboration.
After entering the UK, Bubble Mart’s strategy is to “brand up”, especially co-branding with top consumer brands.
The same logic is being applied to Heytea.
Products are the first and most important competitiveness. Ifeng.com Technology learned that in keeping with local tastes, Heytea has strengthened its self-research capabilities and has launched more than 20 overseas original drinks. Among them, "Moyun Coconut Blue" is based on blue spirulina, coconut water, matcha and other ingredients. It has both visual and health concepts and quickly sold out in markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States.
Culturally, Heytea has collaborated with local brand IPs many times last year, and has successively launched cooperation with artists and trendy brands such as alexanderwang, Tears of Themis, and Yayoi Kusama. When opening its store on the West Coast of the United States, Heytea launched a limited-edition drink "California Sunset" inspired by the California sunset, which attracted NBA star Paul George to check in.
Up to now, HeyTea has entered 8 overseas countries including Singapore, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, the United States, South Korea, and Japan, as well as Hong Kong and Macao regions of China, covering 28 overseas cities.
Currently, HeyTea still faces an arduous task: how to establish a stable global operation system during a period of rapid development.
HeyTea told Phoenix Technology that it has established a professional local team in the United States, covering key functions such as brand marketing, product research and development, operations management, supply chain management, and quality control to ensure that store operation standards are consistent with customer experience. In addition, Heytea has established multiple warehousing centers on the east and west coasts of the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. In the United States, it has cooperated with leading suppliers such as Sysco to achieve localized procurement of 13 core categories such as milk and fruits. At the beginning of the year, it even launched its own takeout business in the United States. This systematic war has just begun.