Most Expensive Coffee in the World? A Tea Launch Says Otherwise

HEYTEA opened its first global handcrafted store in Nantou Ancient Town, Shenzhen, on September 19, splitting three floors into hand-stirred ice, handcrafted tea and hand-brewed fine tea. More than 50 new products launched at once, from Musang King durian and mangosteen to Thai golden pomelo and guava, alongside brewed pure teas covering China's six major tea categories.

The priciest item, Big Musang King Durian, sells for 138 yuan with a custom cup. The launch reflects a broader shift: new-style tea brands are pushing deeper into original leaf tea as the pure tea share of the track rises. The same dynamic plays out in coffee, where single-origin lots and higher prices draw steady interest, even if the most expensive coffee in the world remains a separate category.

Heytea has opened its first global handcrafted store in Nantou Ancient Town, Shenzhen. The three-story space corresponds to three product lines: hand-stirred ice, handcrafted tea, and hand-brewed fine tea, launching more than 50 new products at once. From Musang King durian to mangosteen, Thai golden pomelo, and guava, to traditional brewed pure teas covering China's six major tea categories and creative mixed cups, this store is clearly not satisfied with the conventional tea beverage playbook. The most expensive single item, "Big Musang King Durian," is priced at 138 yuan, and the cups have also been custom-designed. A new-style tea beverage brand going back to deeply cultivate original leaf tea—behind this is the trend of the tea beverage track continuously expanding and the proportion of pure tea rising. This article takes you through a complete understanding of the product structure, pricing strategy, and industry significance of this new launch.

Since its debut, Heytea has always carried the label of an internet-famous brand, with high recognition among the many new-style tea beverages.

On September 19, Heytea opened the world's first "handcrafted store" in Nantou Ancient Town, Shenzhen, and on the opening day it attracted a large number of consumers lining up to experience it.

The name "handcrafted store"—just hearing it makes it clear that this is not Heytea's usual store format.

More noteworthy is that while launching this entirely new store type, Heytea also released more than fifty products in one go, and these products are not the conventional items commonly seen on the market.

Since it is called a "handcrafted store," the core selling point naturally rests on the word "handcrafted"—most of the production steps for the store's products rely on manual completion.

It is reported that this store has a total of three floors, divided by floor into three product lines: hand-stirred ice, handcrafted tea, and hand-brewed fine tea.

Heytea set an independent product theme for each floor, with the production and display of products in the same series concentrated on the same floor: the first floor for hand-stirred ice, the second floor for handcrafted tea, and the third floor for hand-brewed fine tea.

Specifically, the hand-stirred ice series includes 7 products; the handcrafted tea series has more than twenty; and the hand-brewed fine tea series also has more than twenty.

The hand-stirred ice series was born out of Heytea's previous classic products, with the biggest change being the use of the traditional hand-stirred ice technique for presentation, made fresh on the spot. In addition, this series also showcases on site the manual processing of ingredients such as brown sugar, mochi, cheese, and fresh fruit.

For example, the inspiration for "Hand-Stirred Grape Ice" comes from Heytea's former hit product, Grape.

During production, the grapes need to be peeled by hand, then complete flesh of seasonal Kyoho grapes, cheese, and the ice base are added, and finally it is beaten into a smoothie using the traditional hand-stirring ice method.

In addition to this one, there are also "Hand-Stirred Fresh Coconut Ice," "Hand-Stirred Cheese Berry Berry Ice," "Hand-Stirred Longan Fresh Coconut Ice," "Slow-Pressed All-Fresh Oil Mandarin," and others, all following a similar approach to create new flavors.

The handcrafted tea series, meanwhile, makes creative upgrades based on Heytea's existing highly popular products, selecting high-quality fruits, tea varieties, and special handcrafted toppings, combined through multiple processes. Fruit processing methods include hand-peeling, hand-cutting, hand-mashing, and hand-shaking to extract juice, which are then combined, blended, and mixed into cups with the tea base.

The high-end fruits used in this series include Musang King, mangosteen, Thai golden pomelo, guava, and others. (Even Musang King is used—Heytea really is willing to spend.)

The hand-brewed fine tea series centers on China's six major tea categories, covering green tea, black tea, oolong tea, dark tea, yellow tea, and white tea. Customers can choose between handcrafted pure tea and hand-mixed creative tea.

Handcrafted pure tea follows the traditional brewing route. According to the brand, the representative teas in this series include Smoked Souchong, Anji White Tea, Mengding Yellow Bud, Yingde Black Tea No. 9, and others, totaling 13 items, which the R&D team spent several months going deep into production areas to select one by one from thirty to forty teas.

Hand-mixed creative tea, on the other hand, is made into creative mixed cups according to the flavor characteristics of each tea, or paired and combined with fruit.

In terms of price, most of these items are priced between 26 yuan and 50 yuan, with the most expensive being "Big Musang King Durian," at 138 yuan per cup.

One more point worth mentioning: Heytea's hand-stirred ice uses custom ice cups. The advantage of the custom cup is that it makes it convenient to eat the fruit directly. The lid has a switch structure, and some cups also have special ice-layer treatment in the lower half.

From Heytea's latest round of new products, several directions are relatively clear:

First, taking past classic products and innovating on them again; second, further upgrading the fruit line, with Musang King, mangosteen, Thai golden pomelo, guava, and others joining in, and prices rising accordingly, with "Big Musang King Durian" selling for 138 yuan; third, starting to make an issue of the cups, customizing containers for specific products.

There is another interesting phenomenon: as a new-style tea beverage brand, Heytea is eyeing not only new-style tea, but also traditional tea. Industry insiders have previously analyzed that the market size of tea beverages is far larger than that of coffee, which is probably one of the motivations for Heytea's willingness to return to original leaf tea and produce it with traditional brewing and presentation methods.

As the tea beverage market grows larger, the proportion of original leaf tea among new tea beverage brands has also been gradually climbing recently, while place of origin and flavor characteristics are increasingly emphasized. This year, many brands focused on original leaf tea have emerged across the tea beverage industry, such as Shenzhen's tea stone, whose stores sell as many as 108 kinds of tea.

The new-style tea beverage track is becoming increasingly lively, and perhaps before long, traditional original leaf tea will spark new possibilities on this track.

Image source/Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.