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| - I've gotta say, I love the concept of this place. It has a great laid back atmosphere (enhanced by live guitar on my visit), and I love tea.
I visited the Urban Tea Loft for East Valley Friday Nights, a weekly get-together. I was looking forward to this location, I haven't found a great place to drink tea since I moved to Arizona. They accommodated our larger group acceptably, but they understandably seem to be set up to cater to smaller casual groups. There were little issues with service like it taking a few tries to get some tartar sauce for my fish. I had the honey lemon green tea and catfish with macaroni and cheese and potato salad off the soul food menu.
The green tea was loose leaf, but not whole leaf, and was only available flavored with lemon. My hopes for off menu ordering were dashed when another person in my party tried to order a non flavored black or Darjeeling tea iced. She settled for the lemon green like I did. I enjoyed it and thought the device the tea brewed in was pretty cool, and people near me were commenting on how good it smelled. But I was disappointed that the tea selection was entirely flavored teas, their web site features many pictures of high end teas brewing, so I hoped they'd have some rare teas that I could enjoy during my visit.
The food was good, but had some temperature issues. The Macaroni and Cheese was tasty but served barely warmer than room temperature, and the catfish was underseasoned and VERY hot. It didn't taste overcooked, but I burned my tongue, otherwise I wouldn't mention it. Once it cooled down it was nice with some tartar sauce.
My issues were pretty minor, but the prices charged here are high enough that it should be reflected in my standards. I'll have to come back and try something off of the standard menu as part of a smaller group, because I want to like Urban Tea Loft.
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