Heytea

Heytea (喜茶) is the Chinese tea-drink brand credited with inventing the modern "cheese tea" — fresh fruit tea crowned with a layer of salted cheese foam. Founded in 2012 in Guangdong, Heytea grew into one of China's most recognizable tea brands by pairing real fruit pulp with premium tea bases and a design-forward store experience aimed at younger, lifestyle-driven customers.

In the United States, Heytea is in an aggressive expansion phase, with locations concentrated in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and New York. Its menu skews toward fresh fruit drinks rather than traditional milk tea, and its signature Grape Cheese Tea — whole peeled grapes over green tea with a cheese cap — is among the most photographed tea drinks on social media, driving strong organic search demand in US markets with large Asian-American populations.

Heytea occupies the mid-range price tier, with most large drinks priced between $5.50 and $7.00. The brand differentiates itself from older boba chains through ingredient transparency (real fruit rather than syrups), seasonal limited-edition collaborations, and a strong visual identity. Like Chagee and Mixue, Heytea is part of the current wave of Chinese tea brands expanding into the US, but it competes more directly on fruit-forward innovation than on tea-leaf purism. Pricing and availability vary by location and should be verified at the store level.