What the Cheese Nuonuo topping says about coffee blending work

Heytea launched Longjing Cheese Nuonuo nationwide, pairing Longjing tea, cheese cloud top and milk with a new topping made from glutinous rice paste blended into the classic cheese mix. Staff report the prep requires about seven minutes of constant stirring and burns easily at the bottom, leaving their arms sore during busy shifts.

The complaints point to a wider issue in drink production: the more elaborate a topping, the more labor each cup demands, much like the care a coffee blending or coffee grinding process needs for consistency. Heytea has not yet eased the steps, so the dessert-style drink remains a test of staffing and prep routines in stores.

New-style tea brand Heytea has recently launched a new product, "Longjing Cheese Nuonuo," across its nationwide stores, combining Longjing tea, cheese cloud top, and milk, and introducing a brand-new topping called "Cheese Nuonuo." However, this topping, made by blending glutinous rice paste with the classic cheese mix, has sparked collective complaints from store employees due to its cumbersome production process—requiring constant stirring for seven minutes and prone to burning at the bottom—with staff exclaiming that their arms are about to fall off. This article outlines the highlights of the new product formula, the topping production process, and real feedback from frontline employees, taking you behind the scenes of the little-known prep work for this "super filling" drink.

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In the past, people often joked that milk tea with more and more toppings was almost turning into eight-treasure porridge—tapioca pearls and taro balls are round, grass jelly and pudding are cubed, and purple sweet potato and taro are mashed... Although the forms are diverse and the portions are increasingly generous, they at least still maintain the appearance of a dessert. For milk tea lovers, it's nothing more than drinking a bowl of sugar water with substantial ingredients.

However, as brands release new products at an ever-faster pace, in order to capture the hearts of dessert lovers, the list of toppings offered to customers has become increasingly dazzling. Almost any cross-industry ingredient that can be stuffed into milk tea has been targeted by R&D teams, and even "rice" from the dining table has not been spared.

Recently, many netizens learned from social platforms that Heytea will launch a new product, "Longjing Cheese Nuonuo," in stores nationwide today. This drink combines cheese cloud top, Longjing tea, milk, and other ingredients, paired with a new-flavor topping called "Cheese Nuonuo." The familiar combination made old fans sigh, saying it feels like "being transported back to 2017, the time when I was crazy in love with cheese tea."

However, compared to the drink itself, Heytea's R&D department's new topping "Cheese Nuonuo" quickly attracted the attention of a crowd of "topping fanatics" because it uses an unusual yet familiar ingredient—"rice"—and many wanted to place orders to try it out.

According to information published on the official mini-program, this topping requires first grinding glutinous rice into a paste, then mixing it with the classic cheese and heating while stirring until it becomes smooth and stringy, after which cooked hot white glutinous rice is added to enhance the texture. Therefore, "Cheese Nuonuo," whether from its name or pictures, exudes a strong sense of "filling." Its white appearance and sticky texture have already led netizens to jokingly call it "baby complementary food" before its official launch.

While others were concerned about how the new product tastes, Heytea employees still busy prepping ingredients in the back kitchen said unanimously: "It really tastes good, but this topping is truly hard to make."

As the launch horn officially sounded, workers were seen grinding their teeth and complaining: "Two hours of opening prep, half an hour spent cooking this nuonuo," "I suggest the R&D department come down and do it for a few days," "I give up, pure torture," "My arm is about to break off from all the stirring," "Do you know how hard this nuonuo is to cook?" "The recipe gives me a headache," "My hands are going to be ruined," "After a month, my arms will lose 5 jin"...

According to the workers, the topping launched by Heytea this time is first of all more complex in formula than the previous "Nuonuo series," requiring more ingredients. Second, although the production involves the same "stir-stir-stir," since the R&D department requires the final texture to be a thick, "stringy" consistency, turning the watery rice paste completely into "porridge" requires far more effort in stirring alone than preparing other toppings.

The most torturous part is that the entire prep process requires heating over low heat, so employees must stand in front of the induction cooker and stir the white rice paste at a constant speed without stopping, drawing circles in the pot for a full 7 minutes. Once the motion slows down, the stirring frequency can't keep up with the heating speed of the rice paste, and soon the worst fear of the workers comes true—the bottom burns. A whole pot of "topping" is ruined, and the stirring step has to start all over again.

And if problems like understaffing at the store occur, then the back kitchen will see the following scene: while timing, the left hand stirs the rice nuonuo, and the right hand whips the cheese! No end to the busyness! Truly no end!

Image source: Internet screenshot

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