My husband took me here for high tea on my birthday, and we had a wonderful experience. It’s a quiet place tucked into an antique mall, and seems to be a local go-to location for bridal or baby showers. The food was phenomenal, and they were incredibly kind and accommodating about my allergies. It was a little difficult to get ahold of them – I emailed them over a month ago and my husband emailed a week ago, and neither of us ever got a response. I would suggest calling during their business hours, because that is how Jake managed to arrange for our lovely afternoon.
This is from my Cha Yen Thai review, but I felt it captured a lot of what we go through when attempting to shop at this location:
“Teavana is the only local place we’ve found so far for loose-leaf, so we stopped by last night to add something new to our cupboard. This tea is the reason the trip was not a complete disaster!
The saleslady latched onto us like a dachshund – it really felt like a small dog had locked its teeth into the leg of my jeans and was trying with all it’s might to pull us in the direction it wanted to go. There may have been yipping involved as well, but we did our best to tune it out.
Once I had managed to detach her (believe me, it was not easy!) we were left alone for a minute or two to browse. I was talking to my husband about the double-walled glass cups when there she was again. Have you ever played that game in the arcade, where you hit the gophers that pop out of the holes? That’s what it felt like! We would very politely let her know that her help was not required, but less than two minutes later she’d pop back up and need to be knocked down again.
We finally gave up and went to go purchase our teas. I had made a list beforehand of things that looked good and were rated well here, and I am so glad I did. Last time had been a little overwhelming, and with as assertive as their salespeople are I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage.
Despite our list, she was reluctant to get some of the lower-priced teas…"
That’s the end of the store-related part of the tea review, but not the end of the story!
We’ve been in a couple times now, and each time has been the same. Super-aggressive salespeople who will NOT leave you alone and treat you like you’re an errant child when you don’t follow their “suggestions”.
The store has a 2oz minimum, but getting them to stick to that is a nightmare – every time we’ve been in they’ve tried to push it higher, and treat us like we’re being unreasonable when I asked her to take the 2.9oz she’d measured to the 2oz I actually asked for. And when I tried to use the coupon their company had emailed me? She actually gave me this ugly look – a non-verbal accusation that I was trying to scam them!
There are a couple of their teas that I absolutely love, so I will brave it every month or so, but it’s not somewhere I want to linger at all.
