HEYTEA (Times Square) — Restaurant in New York

A few months after its flashy Times Square debut, I stepped into HeyTea LAB—China’s trendsetting tea chain turned “New Style Tea” evangelist—expecting the post-hype lull. Gone was the queue snaking around the block. Instead, the space breathed quiet confidence: a well-oiled lab of leaf and steam.

Inside, staff wear lab coats and operate behind a brushed-metal counter outfitted with glass flasks, vials, and an “Ultra Fresh Tea Extraction Machine.” There’s even a butane torch, used with a flourish to toast the cream cap of certain drinks—sending sweet notes of caramel wafting into the air like a sensory prelude.

I ordered the Gardenia 5, a drink featuring Ya’an green tea topped with a luxuriously thick layer of matcha-infused cream and pistachio crumble. Each cup comes with a mini tasting guide, detailing the tea’s origin—from the ancient Tea Horse Road in Sichuan to the gardenia blooms of Leshan—and offering flavor notes as if it were a grand cru: fresh gardenia up top, green tea at the core, and roasted Sichuan warmth as base. It leaves you slightly perplexed: do you sip through the straw and preserve the layering, or mix it all up and lose the structure? I asked one of the staff in a white lab coat, and they were just as unsure.

Compared to other premium Chinese tea spots in NYC—say, Chicha San-Chen in Chinatown, which leans traditional and meditative—HeyTea’s Times Square outpost is a modernist vision. Dark green walls, minimalist shelving, dim ambient lighting. It’s more high-concept showroom than café, and proudly so.

The drink itself? Enjoyable. Smooth, well-balanced. At $10, it’s not exactly cheap—but it delivers on flavor, craftsmanship. You take it in, knowing full well that the ritual—this elegant choreography of traditional culture and modern twist—owes more to market calculus than to any rooted cultural memory.

The bubble tea world in China is fiercely competitive—hundreds of brands chasing the next trend, the next Instagram shot. What HeyTea is doing here feels more deliberate. It’s an export of culture, repackaged through a futuristic lens, tailored for the spectacle of Times Square.

So, does it live up to the hype? If by hype you mean the illusion that multinational beverage labs can channel centuries of tea culture through a crème brûlée torch—then...

As a HeyTea lover, I’m excited to see their rapid expansion while still maintaining the consistency of their drinks and constantly innovating with new drink series.

This is the first Tealab location outside China, offering both the regular heytea menu and experimental drinks you won’t find in their other locations. Make sure to get their specialty drinks and shaved ice if you visit.

Pro tips: Visit on a weekday to avoid the times square crowd if you can. Short line when i went after work on mon, but they have to take the order one by one so expect a wait. Around $10 per drink after tax. Still worth a try if you like heytea. Regular heytea is good enough imo!

If you’re overwhelmed by their tealab menu and don’t know what to get, here are their most recommended (and most insta-worthy) drinks:

＊Matcha 0 $7.9 Matcha 0 has the cutest presentation of all the drinks on their menu. It is a matcha shaved ice layered over coconut milk jelly, topped with a fluffy Viennese-style cloud, and finished with a sprinkle of crushed pistachios.

I can totally see this as a summer treat. I think it tastes even better as it melts a little, which you can sip straight through a straw.

＊Gongfu 3.3 $9.9 Gongfu 3.3 is a must try for pistachio fans. I enjoyed the blend of pistachio and toasted meringue, which gave the feel of a creamy pistachio cheesecake as it was very pistachio-forward. The black tea was on the bitter side so it balanced out the overall sweetness.

＊Gardenia 3 $8.5 I’d say Gardenia 3 is a tea lover’s choice, as the gardenia tea has a gentle floral note. The pecan foam cloud is nutty and incredibly airy. The crunchy toppings add a crackly contrast...

its very crowded so be prepared to wait on a long line and maybe plan to drink it somewhere else. they have nowhere to sit, just countertops to lean on which is a shame bcuz they couldve had some seating in there. bonus points for having wifi though as well as a station to get napkins, straws, trays, etc. the menu is pretty small and they don't have stuff most places do, like fruit jelly. very disappointing but the drink i got was still pretty good. they have one size and its pretty big. my drink had fresh fruit, coconut jelly that was really small so i barely noticed it, and it was very refreshing and ice cold, despite having no ice! i have no complaints about the drink itself! my friend said he could barely taste the grapefruit in his drink, though. also, the menu is just... bad because its on the counter right where you order, so you cant even see it until its your turn to order which slows things down. the menu doesntsay whats in any of the drinks so you have to ask, slowing things down even more, and theres no images either. the only stuff on the walls is in this "aesthetic" font thats terribly hard to read. overall, not...