Popular tea spot that attracted queues for days to open second Manchester shop

A tea shop which attracted huge queues when it opened in Manchester city centre a few weeks ago is set to open a second site in the coming weeks.

HEYTEA launched their first Manchester branch on Market Street opposite Piccadilly Gardens in mid-June, drawing in customers with their buy-on-get-one-free deals. Now, they’re preparing to open a second site in Chinatown.

The brand’s second site will be located on Princess Street on the edge of the district. It will neighbour OHAYO TEA, a Japanese-themed tea house, which serves freshly brewed fruit tea and a range of bubble teas.

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While the tea brand has yet to announce the news on its social media channels, the site on Princess Street already features the HEYTEA branding. As well as posters covering the windows of the site, the logo and lettering has also been fixed in place about the door.

The Chinese tea chain HEYTEA has more than 1,000 stores in China, several in Singapore and a number of international outposts. It’s known for its signature cheese tea range, a cold tea topped with a foamy layer of milk, sweet or salt cream cheese and whipping cream.

Also known as milk cap tea or cheese mousse tea, it’s just one of a number of beverages the shop serves alongside bubble, fruit and other milk-based tea options. Fruit and bubble tea choices have boomed in recent years, with a variety of shops and cafe popping up all across Greater Manchester.

Billing themselves as the ‘OG of New Asian Tea’, HEYTEA started out as a tiny tea shop on a lane called Jiangbianli in Guangdong in China, and rallied against how milk tea shops a decade ago commonly used ‘cheap’ ingredients. HEYTEA’s founder Neo wanted to use fresh milk and real tea and created the first-ever cheese tea in his kitchen.

The thinking behind this was to soften the overpowering fresh tea taste with a layer of fine cheese foam made with real milk and create an aftertaste that ‘perfectly catered to the young and hip crowd’. Today, this new-style tea has blown up, allowing them to expand and open more than 4,000 stores worldwide.

For those yet to try the new tea shop, the brand’s main products include fruit tea in flavours spanning Grape Boom and Mango Grapefruit Boom; light milk tea; milk tea, consisting of hit drinks such as Brown Sugar Bobo Milk Tea; and Pure Tea, a more classic tea option.

HEYTEA has not yet confirmed the opening date for its second Manchester branch, but it is expected to open in the next few weeks.

The new tea spot will be located at 93 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 4HT.