China-born new-style tea chain Heytea opened its first U.S. Gelato Lab+ on October 16 at 863 Broadway in Union Square, New York — a dedicated store concept that layers eight made-in-store gelato and sorbet flavors on top of the brand's existing drink menu. The move marks the fourth lab-format location Heytea has opened outside China, following Times Square, Toronto, and Bangkok, and it signals a deliberate international expansion model built around format differentiation rather than identical footprint rollout.
The Format Logic
Heytea's internal lab concept functions as a product-development engine made visible to consumers. A "lab module" introduces tea in a new form — gelato, baked goods, cakes — and when that experiment demonstrates demand, it can graduate into a standalone store format. Gelato first appeared as a lab module at Heytea's OCT Harbour location in Shenzhen in 2019. The Times Square store, which opened in February 2025, debuted 10 globally exclusive tea lab drinks and moved more than 3,500 cups on day one. Union Square takes that scaffolding further by dedicating an entire store concept to the gelato module. For multi-unit operators and beverage brand directors tracking how specialty chains build category extensions, Heytea's lab architecture offers a replicable model: pilot internally, prove demand, then promote the module into a format.
What's on the Menu
All eight flavors are made fresh in-store daily using real fruit, fresh milk, and ingredients that reflect Heytea's tea-forward identity. Standouts include Mango Coconut Sticky Rice Gelato — a jasmine tea–mango and coconut sticky rice blend with chewy sticky rice folded in — Grape Basque Cheesecake Gelato, a dairy-free Jasmine Yuzu Sorbet, and "Cement" Black Sesame Gelato. The flavor architecture mirrors a wider trend in the specialty beverage and dessert category: operators using culturally specific, high-quality ingredients to justify premium price points and drive repeat visits from consumers who want something they cannot find at a QSR or grocery.
Local Collaboration as a Launch Tool
Heytea is using two timed activations to deepen its Union Square positioning. From October 26 to 30, the store will collaborate with New York-based illustrator Jon Burgerman on limited-edition stickers, mini canvas totes, and color-in cup sleeves. From November 2 to 8, Tompkins Square Bagels — a 15-year East Village institution — will supply fresh bagels for "Everything Gelato," a cream cheese gelato folded with everything bagel seasoning, limited to 30 servings per day. These activations are worth noting for brand launch and operator marketing teams: the collaborations create earned media hooks, build neighborhood credibility, and manufacture scarcity without requiring permanent menu changes or supply chain overhauls. For a brand with more than 45 U.S. locations across New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Houston, Seattle, and Boston, and more than 3,500 stores globally, the local-first launch playbook runs counter to the standardization instinct that typically governs chains at this scale.
Operators in the specialty beverage and dessert space should watch whether Heytea's lab format generates the kind of per-visit ticket and return-frequency data that justifies broader U.S. rollout. If the Union Square location demonstrates that a dedicated gelato-plus-drinks format outperforms a standard beverage-only unit on revenue per square foot, expect the Gelato Lab+ to appear in other Heytea markets. For vendors supplying fresh dairy, specialty fruit ingredients, or artisan packaging into the better-beverage and modern dessert channel, Heytea's expansion trajectory — and its emphasis on made-in-store production — represents a meaningful procurement conversation worth initiating now. For more on how specialty beverage brands are structuring U.S. retail and experiential launches, see our coverage in Brand Launch Department and Operator Intelligence.
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.
