heytea (Brooklyn 86st) — Restaurant in New York

PROS:

The employees are very efficient and hard-working. Because the location is in Bay Ridge, they speak both English and Mandarin which is great. It’s very clean inside and they only sell beverages from a simple menu which is why the tea is so fresh. The tea is very similar quality to the tea you can find in Taiwan (cheese foam, fresh fruit, sugar intensity). VERY delicious, filling, and not too sweet at all. I would recommend full sugar for fruit drinks and half sugar for the matcha drinks.

CONS:

tw: racism/alienation

Bay Ridge is mainly comprised of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans but I don’t feel treated differently when I come to visit the neighborhood. You feel out of place but everyone is respectful and I understood that as I was coming to visit this particular HEYTEA location. But I felt a bit disrespected and forgotten as a black person visiting this place. My mother was on line waiting for me on line as I was across the street at an Ortho K Eye D appointment which was 2 minutes away. The staff asked if my mom was waiting for someone and she said yes, and he told my mom that it would be considered skipping (the line is very long) but she told him that we would individually order the B1G1F deal. He said okay. I went on line with my mom and no staff said anything to me so I was grateful. We ordered and the staff inside were extremely nice and patient. We exit and wait outside for our order numbers to be called. We understand that it takes a while, but as the numbers are increasing, we get excited. He calls my number and I go inside and he apologizes saying that he meant to call another number, which was a little embarrassing and I walked back outside. We wait more and find that BOTH of our numbers are skipped and the number after us is called. We were taken aback and the man calling out numbers reassured us. But another order number is called after us 😢. It would be different if one of our orders was missing but both??? I am hoping it’s not racism and just a coincidence. We ask him what the hold up is after more waiting and he tells us that they ran out of bubbles but 1-2 more order numbers are called. We understand and wait. A woman from inside comes out and speaks to two women outside who are waiting for their orders too and they are addressed in a thoughtful conversation, whereas me and my mother were brushed off in English. I felt a little hurt because I can understand some Chinese. 🥲 Turns out, both of our orders were already prepared but BOTH of our order numbers were forgotten. And the man went inside to retrieve them and apologized. I hope other black visitors had/have a better experience because the tea is great quality but I felt happy walking in and felt sad walking out.

Edit: Boosting from 3 to 4 stars because of thoughtful...

I tried to order two drinks today, a bubble milk tea and a matcha jasmine tea. I liked the matcha and wanted to have the bubble milk tea and my boyfriend wanted the matcha jasmine tea again since he liked it. I was disappointed today in the service. I never ended up with my drinks.

I ordered the two drinks and waited 20 minutes before one of the baristas even mentioned that they didn't have anymore boba and needed to make more. The wait was for another 25 minutes and due to a time constraint, we couldn't spend 40 minutes waiting for a drink. The barista asked if they can refund me the one drink with the boba. I said yes, with the expectation that one of the drinks with the boba would be canceled. The barista cancelled both drinks, even though we still wanted the matcha drink and made it clear. She said to reorder the two drinks.

Keep in mind, this was after 25 minutes of waiting for our original drinks and now we're being told to wait another 15-20 minutes for our drink. (Probably longer as more people came in after we ordered). We left and ordered Vivi's across the street which only took 10 minutes (and I also ordered the popcorn chicken).

I would have been happy with just the matcha drink as my boyfriend wanted the matcha. I just ordered the boba milk tea as a bonus. Nowhere did we say to cancel...

For the first time, I had an amazing experience at this tea house. It was Thursday evening, and I had just finished a busy day at work. I was a little tired and wanted to grab a drink. I was thinking of ordering a Passion Fruit Blast, maybe I was too tired and accidentally pointed at the different drink.

After about five minutes, my order was ready, and the employee called me to pick it up. I was a little confused because the drink she handed me was a slushie. I asked, "That's not what I ordered, is it?" She checked and asked, "Is it order number 50320?" I looked at my receipt, and sure enough, it was correct... lol.

The situation was a little awkward at first and I felt a little sorry to confuse them. But the staff was very polite. She handed the drink to me with a happy face. And we just keep laughing. my inner voice was like “ whatever you made it must be good” . That moment really lightened my mood and made my day! I wish we could be friends.

By the way, sorry if my English isn’t perfect. 😄 I just want to say the drinks are delicious, and the service...