HEYTEA Coconut Mango Blue

The HEYTEA Coconut Mango Blue is $8.99 and 275 calories, and it is the drink people photograph before they drink. Mango, coconut milk and jelly, sago and blue spirulina over jasmine tea, layered so the blue sits above the gold and the two meet in a band of green in the middle.

The colour is real rather than dyed. Blue spirulina is an algae extract, and it brings almost no flavour of its own, which is the reason it is used. All it does is turn the top of the cup a deep sea blue that shifts as the layers settle. Left alone for five minutes the boundary blurs and the drink turns green from the middle out.

Underneath the theatre it is a solid fruit tea. Mango carries the sweetness, coconut milk rounds it out, and jasmine tea sits at the back doing the work the pure coconut drinks skip. That tea presence is why this reads lighter than the Coconut Mango Boom despite carrying more calories.

Texture comes from two directions. Sago gives the soft, pudding-like bite at the base, and coconut jelly adds firmer cubes that hold their shape all the way down the cup. Between them there is more to chew here than in any other fruit tea on the menu.

At 43g of sugar it is sweet, though the jasmine keeps it from being cloying. This is one to order when you want the drink to be an event rather than a refresher. It is also the one to order if you are buying for someone who has never been to HEYTEA, because the layering makes the case for the brand better than any description does.

It comes in one size only, so there is no large cup decision to make. Milk is declared, which rules it out for anyone avoiding dairy.

One practical note for ordering: ask for it without ice and the layers hold their edges for noticeably longer, because there is nothing melting into the boundaries. The trade-off is that the drink warms faster, so it works better if you are sitting in than if you are walking with it.

For the same tropical build without the spirulina and jelly, the Coconut Mango Boom is cheaper at $8.99. If the layered look is what appeals, the Cloud Mango gets there differently with a cheese cloud cap.