T. Tea Bar & Fusion Cafe Edit

I would probably be at this place all the time if it wasn’t for their menu full of what others aptly call frou-frou drinks. If I order tea I want to be able to actually taste the tea.

I’ve been coming to this location since it was originally TeazMe. According to rumor, one of the original owners stole away the name and idea and took it on the road to the San Francisco area. That was when this place became T.

Unfortunately, with the old name, also went many of the comforts that were once afforded to the cafe. The seating is no longer padded and it’s like the entire cafe is designed to prevent you from having any desire to be there. To be fair, I do enjoy the modern, fusion vibe, but I liked it a lot better when there were cushions involved.

The menu dropped the sushi and replaced it with some of the most delicious fusion bowls I’ve had, so that’s a plus (the sushi was sub-par).

As for the tea itself, as was noted by Tom S., most of the tea options are (quite aptly described as) frou-frou drinks. They might as well not have tea in them at all in most cases. I usually go for their loose leaf pots, but they don’t regulate the temperature of water provided and it’s usually too hot for the teas I order. They don’t exactly hire people who know a lot about tea (or teach them about it at all), so don’t bother asking for recommendations unless you want a juice drink.

The tea bar boasts a variety of teas, both traditional loose leaf (served in an ‘endless pot’) but mostly stresses the starbucks-like concoctions ranging from carbonated teas to sugary smoothie drinks. I had a hard time finding something ‘normal’. I can settle for a sweetened tea if all that entails is a fruit-juice tasting green tea, but everything on their tea menu is not only hard to dissect, it’s very frou frou. Taking your tea to go only gives you a limited range of options as well, so my ‘sparkling black tea’ tasted like perier with the empty contents of a cheap tea bag. Their Boba pearls aren’t that great either. In all fairness, I didn’t get to try their true loose-leaf teas, but everything on the menu is a pass unless you prefer a fruit slurpee.