The Format Expansion
Heytea, the Chinese new-style tea chain that claims to have invented cheese tea in 2012, opened its first U.S. Gelato Lab+ at 863 Broadway in New York's Union Square on October 16, adding a frozen-dessert retail module to a domestic footprint that now exceeds 45 stores across seven American metro markets. The Union Square unit is the fourth lab-format location outside China, following its Times Square, Toronto, and Bangkok stores.
The Gelato Lab+ concept slots inside Heytea's highest-tier store format — the "heytea lab" — where product categories beyond beverages are tested and, if commercially viable, spun into standalone formats. The gelato module traces back to 2019, when the brand first added frozen desserts to its OCT Harbour store in Shenzhen. Seven permanent gelato and sorbet flavors plus one rotating limited-edition offering are produced on-site daily using fresh milk, real fruit, and ingredients such as sticky rice and black sesame. Menu items include a Mango Coconut Sticky Rice Gelato, a dairy-free Jasmine Yuzu Sorbet, and a "Cement" Black Sesame Gelato — each mapped to an existing drink line.
New York as a Test Market
The Union Square opening underscores the commercial weight New York carries in Heytea's international expansion playbook. The brand's Times Square lab, which debuted in February 2025, reported more than 3,500 cups sold on opening day — a benchmark the company cited when positioning the city as a proving ground for globally exclusive product lines. That unit launched 10 globally exclusive tea lab drinks; the Union Square site now extends the experiment into the frozen-dessert category.
Heytea is layering local-partnership activity around the launch to build foot traffic and brand awareness. From October 26 to 30, New York-based illustrator Jon Burgerman will contribute limited-edition stickers, mini canvas totes, and color-in cup sleeves. From November 2 to 8, the brand is collaborating with East Village institution Tompkins Square Bagels on an "Everything Gelato" — an everything-bagel-seasoned cream cheese gelato served with a fresh bagel — limited to 30 servings per day. An opening promotion offering buy-one-get-one on all menu items ran October 16 through 18.
"We're excited to bring another lab to the city. New York has always rewarded curiosity, and it continues to be where we try new ideas," said Jelynn Jiang, Senior Brand Manager for International Markets at Heytea. The brand framed the partnership-and-limited-edition cadence as a deliberate strategy to keep repeat visitation high while maintaining menu novelty.
Scale and Strategy
With more than 3,500 stores across 330-plus cities globally and 150 million registered members, Heytea operates at a scale that allows it to absorb the cost of experimental formats against a profitable core business. The lab model functions as a structured R&D pipeline: unproven concepts are incubated inside multi-module lab stores, then graduated into dedicated formats once demand is established. For foodservice operators and retail investors tracking the premiumization trend in the beverage category, Heytea's approach offers a case study in using format differentiation rather than price-point discounting to sustain brand equity at scale.
The frozen-dessert move also positions Heytea more directly against the growing number of Asian-inspired dessert concepts expanding in U.S. urban markets — a segment drawing increasing attention from multi-unit foodservice investors and franchise developers. Whether the Gelato Lab+ format will be replicated across additional U.S. cities was not disclosed, but the company indicated it intends to continue pairing global scale with location-specific product development as it enters new markets.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
