HEYTEA Longjing Cheese Milk Tea

The HEYTEA Longjing Cheese Milk Tea is $9.99 and 340 calories, which makes it the richest drink in the milk tea range. Golden longjing tea with salted cheese cream stirred through and a light cheese cloud floated on top.

Two cheese elements, not one, and that is what separates it from the cloud drinks. Salted cheese cream goes into the body of the milk tea rather than sitting above it, so the savoury note runs all the way through the cup instead of arriving only at the first sip. The light cloud on top is a second, thinner layer that gives you the traditional cheese tea opening.

Longjing underneath is the right choice for this. Its nutty, pan-fired character has enough backbone to stay present under two layers of dairy, where the more delicate jasmine would disappear. What comes through is a toasted chestnut note against salt and cream, which is closer to a dessert than to a tea drink.

At 14g of fat and 340 calories this is a substantial thing to drink. It is the heaviest item in the milk tea category by a clear margin, and only the bobo milk teas beat it on the wider menu. Treat it as something you have instead of a snack rather than alongside one.

The sweetness is well judged for what it is. At 29g of sugar it carries less than the fruit teas do, and the salt in the cheese cream keeps pulling against it, so the drink never turns sickly the way a heavy sweet coffee can.

It comes in one size. There is no large cup, which is probably the right call given how filling the regular already is.

The two cheese layers also mean the drink changes less as it sits than a cloud drink does. Because the cheese cream is already stirred through, there is no cap to collapse and no moment where the character shifts. What you taste at the last mouthful is close to what you tasted at the first, which suits anyone who drinks slowly.

For the same longjing without either cheese element, the Longjing Milk Tea is $8.49 and 220 calories. For a cheese cloud over plain tea rather than milk tea, the Cloud Jasmine Tea (Original) is lighter at 250.