Heytea opened its first store in Thailand at Bangkok’s CentralWorld on September 25, 2026. The launch brings its three-in-one Lab format to Southeast Asia for the first time.
It gives the Chinese tea chain its third experimental Lab venue outside mainland China, following rollouts in New York and Toronto.
Located on the first floor of CentralWorld in central Bangkok, the flagship combines a tea lab, a bake lab, and a gelato lab into a single retail unit. Customers order past open counters. Staff assemble teas, pastries, and ice creams in plain view of the floor. The store design takes cues from Thai floating markets, using curved timber joinery and boat-shaped counters across the dining area.
Three formats under one roof
Bangkok serves as the testing ground for teaAir, a proprietary foam preparation combining brewed tea, coconut, milk fat, and aerated texture. The chain launched the line with a Rock Oolong Jackfruit recipe. The drink blends oolong tea with jackfruit, papaya, and coconut bases.
Next to the beverage bar, the bake lab sells localized pastries including a Thai Milk Tea croissant egg tart. The adjacent gelato section serves lime-infused Thai milk tea gelato. That puts its cold desserts in direct competition with established dessert cafes inside the mall.
CentralWorld draws heavy foot traffic from Ratchaprasong commercial district office workers and downtown tourists. Heytea vice-president of communications and public relations Cheng Hao noted that the Thai capital combines high tourist volumes with consumers who scrutinize ingredient origins.
“Bangkok is a global leader in trends. The heytea lab is designed for markets where consumers are not simply following trends but actively shaping them.”
Battle for Southeast Asian tea market
Heytea enters an entrenched field of domestic and regional tea operators across Bangkok’s prime shopping centres. CentralWorld already houses domestic giant ChaTraMue and Taiwanese boba chains. Chinese rival Mixue also competes nearby, targeting mass-market street locations on low price points.
Deploying the capital-intensive Lab format rather than a standard kiosk targets premium spenders. The strategy relies on experiential dining and higher transaction values to offset prime retail rents in Bangkok’s top malls. For operators like Central Pattana, experiential food and beverage units generate steady daytime dwell time. Traditional fashion retail no longer delivers that traffic reliably.
Suppliers in Thailand face tighter technical requirements as Chinese beverage brands import complex equipment and custom ingredient formulations. Meanwhile, regional operators must defend margin share. Well-funded Chinese chains continue to use cross-category merchandise, intellectual property partnerships, and proprietary drink textures to command price premiums.
Ten years of retail evolution
Founded nearly fifteen years ago, the business introduced cheese-foam tea to Chinese consumers before expanding across major metropolitan hubs. It created the experimental Lab concept in 2016 as a testing facility for new recipes, interior architecture, and retail formats.
Management later took the Lab model overseas, opening standalone flagship sites at Times Square in New York and the Toronto Eaton Centre in Canada. Past brand marketing has relied on global partnerships with luxury house Fendi, artist Yayoi Kusama, and collectible toy maker POP MART.
Bangkok now anchors the chain’s retail expansion across Southeast Asia. Management has not disclosed the number of secondary standard-format stores planned for the Thai capital. Real estate leasing teams and franchise partners will track sales productivity at CentralWorld through the final quarter of 2026.
Source: Retail News Asia
