Hey Tea


Hey Tea is a Chinese tea drink chain founded in 2012 and headquartered in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. Started off as a small store called "royal tea” in Jiangmen city, Guangdong Province, the brand quickly expanded into other cities in Guangdong and China. Due to a trademark issue, the original name "Royal Tea" was dropped and "Hey Tea" was adopted. By the end of Aug, 2019, Hey Tea operates 265 stores in 37 Chinese cities and 3 stores in Singapore.
Hey Tea is commonly regarded as a "Wanghong" brand in China because its popularity on social media. The brand is famous for its modern interior design, photogenic packaging and innovative drinks. millennials are its main customer demographic. As of that year most locations are in shopping malls catering to wealthy customers. Its signature items are various cheese tea and fruit tea.

History

It opened in 2012 as Royal Tea in Jiangmen, but changed its name as it did not establish a trademark. It adopted its current name in 2016.
In 2015, Hey Tea entered the market of Guangzhou and Shenzhen which are two first-tier cities in China.
In 2016, after obtaining the investment of 100 million yuan from IDG Capital and Angel investor, Hey Tea entered the market of Guangxi.
In 2017, Hey Tea entered Shanghai. The first store which was opened at Raffles City created buzz on social networking because of long lines. In the same year, its bakery brand "Hey Tea Mix" opened the first store in Guangzhou.
Its first location in Hong Kong was scheduled to open circa 2018, in Sha Tin.
In 2018, The first Hong Kong store was opened at New Town Plaza. Subsequently, Hey Tea opened stores at Hong Kong Times Square, Hysan Place, Yuen Long Yoho Mall, and Citywalk.
In addition, Hey Tea has branches in most first and second-tier cities of China, as well as in Singapore.

Brand Honors

Hey Tea adheres to the principle of providing customers with high-quality products and services, insists on its unique style to integrate tea-drinking into a brand new lifestyle. In terms of store design, Hey Tea combines styles of "zen", "minimalism" and "aesthetics" to enrich customers' senses in different aspects, so as to improve their overall experience and make them more enjoy the process of drinking tea. Besides, product packaging is also a unique choice of "cool" and "simple" style which can perfectly fit the brand concept.

Business Model

Only direct-sale stores, franchised stores are not allowed.

Brand Vision

On the product end, Hey Tea has new products every month, once created a monthly industry record of 10 new products; On the marketing end, the brand adheres to the positioning of "Chinese style tea" and creates "national tide" of tea by means of crossover and joint branding; On the operational end, Hey Tea not only launches localized products based on the cultural characteristics of different regions but also continuously improves the overall experience of customers with the help of new retail means. All these efforts are aimed at promoting the new tea trend in China and eventually creating a global brand and symbol.

Stores

Types of Stores

Until 2019:

Food Safety Issues

In 2019, 10 brands of pearl milk tea, including Hey Tea, were found to contain caffeine at an average level of 258 mg/kg. Each cup of Hey Tea's milk tea product contains as much caffeine as 3.5 cans of red bull.
In the same year, a pregnant woman in Suzhou attracted public and media attention when she drank a fly from a drink at the Hey Tea store in Yuanrong, Suzhou. After failing to negotiate with Hey Tea, she appealed to the media and reported to the regulatory authorities. On May 31, the store was closed down by local regulatory authorities because of the internal environmental issue. However, another Suzhou Hey Tea store was closed for the same reason on the same day as the closure of the Yuanrong store.
In addition, tableware hygiene in Hey Tea store has also been exposed unqualified. Recently, in one of the Hey Tea stores in Xiamen, the supervision personnel found that there was too much water on the kitchen's floor, fruits and other materials did not meet the storage requirements. Also, the inspection showed that the containers containing the fruits had a serious ATP index exceeding the prescribed standard.

Violent Dispute

A netizen revealed that Hey Tea staff in Jinan beat a takeaway rider, and posted a live video online, triggered hot discussion on the internet. From the video, the staff of Hey Tea had a physical conflict with the rider and some people even picked up chairs and other equipment during the conflict. Later, the explanation said that at around 13:00 on September 14, the dispute between Hey Tea staff and a takeaway rider was due to a misunderstanding when taking the products.

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