What happens when the search for self and belonging becomes something you can buy?

In the Mood for Jasmine: Cultural Memory and the Rise of Soft Tea Power

In a country obsessed with flat whites and single-origin espresso, seeing crowds of young people queue around the block for iced jasmine tea feels… surreal.

Molly Tea

But step into a shopping centre in Sydney or Melbourne, and you’ll find it.

Molly Tea and HEYTEA — two high-concept Chinese tea brands quietly rewriting the rules of cool.

Both began as cultural phenomena in China, where tea isn’t a beverage — it’s identity. HEYTEA led the wave with sleek, tech-driven stores and daring flavor experiments (cheese tea, anyone?). Molly followed with an ethereal, floral aesthetic that makes every drink feel like a love letter to your inner self.

HeyTea

Here in Australia, these brands have landed almost like mirages. While most locals pass by on their way to a café, Chinese-Australian Gen Z know exactly what they’re lining up for: a taste of home, a soft moment of beauty, a generational experience that feels both nostalgic and brand new.

You won’t find this in the U.S. — at least not yet. American Gen Z, still loyal to chaotic energy and cold brew, haven’t quite embraced tea as a mood or identity. But here, in the folds of Australia’s multicultural urban centres, something different is blooming.

This isn’t just about tea. It’s a quiet rebellion — against hustle, against tradition, even against Australia’s sacred coffee culture. It’s about ritual in a plastic bottle. It’s poetry you can drink.

In a deeper sense, this is about more than taste — it’s about belonging, signaling, and soothing. For young people negotiating identity in a globalised, high-pressure world, brands like Molly and HEYTEA offer more than refreshment: they offer cultural currency. To hold a bottle is to hold a mood, a memory, a message — I know who I am, or at least who I want to be. In the age of emotional branding and identity-as-performance, soft tea power isn’t just a trend. It’s a psychological shelter, bottled. 

As someone who has written critically about the commodification of yoga and wellness, I see a familiar pattern here — a soft aesthetic masking the harder truths of capitalism.