Dragon Gongfu Tea House in Ashland

Interesting alternative to the bar scene. The people there obviously took a lot of pride in their tea. I had the privilege of sitting for an hour and drinking some delicious vintage (30-year-old) teas just brought back from Vietnam while the tea nerds geeked out over them, all for a cool $10. Definitely worth a visit, especially if you have never tried pu'erh.

The tea is pricey but the environment is pleasant. I personally don't drink so its cool to know a place where you can get the feeling of being at a bar and having that social interaction. I used to slam pints every half hour so $10 for a half hour of tea is fine by me!

As a seasoned, mandarin speaking professional in the Chinese tea industry for over a decade, I can confidently share that the Dragon Tea lounge serves a unique purpose. So long as what they offer is what you are expecting, this is a potentially fun social scene with lots of stimulus, over decent tea.      However, if you are looking for a relaxing, professional tea experience, you will probably be disappointed. Not only are you constantly watching the clock to avoid running up a $40+ bill, (you pay by the 1/2 hour, which is not relaxing), they have a very limited selection of an exclusive line of re-branded teas that they choose for you. You are drinking what they are pouring, even if it's been steeped 10+ times prior to your arrival. They also under brew the tea from the start, so for the $10 per half hour you pay for what they consider their top shelf teas, you only get one decent infusion from the first round, that is shared between you and many others. Then the tea is diluted significantly, because they use about 1/4 of the amount of tea that they should for the size pots they are using, and for the number of infusions they need to brew to keep up with demand. At $10 per half hour per person, one would think they would honor that by putting enough tea in to match that. Then, if you do like what you drink there enough to buy dry tea to take home, you are paying for the branding, which is overpricing the tea by sometimes 800% over the actual market value of it (literally).   So, if you go, go for the scene, because that is what is, and that is where...