Kung Fu Tea — Restaurant in Annandale

This is my favorite place for milk tea/bubble tea! I have gotten bubble tea at least 75 different shops from all around over the the last ten years - Flushing, Seoul, Philly, LA, Seattle, Vancouver, Tokyo, Orlando, Chicago, Vegas, DC, etc. I even make my own at home with loose leaf tea. Kung Fu Tea is still my favorite. The Annandale location doesn't disappoint. They are all about the quality ingredients but they aren't snooty. If you're new and have no idea what is going on and the line isn't bad, they will let you try a little bit of the toppings to figure out what you want. Yes, there are times without lines now that they have been open a while. They mostly seem to get long on Friday/Saturday evening from what I've seen lately.

They have a ton of lovely options. The black Kung Fu Tea with bubbles is a classic. The chai is perfectly spiced. The matcha milk strike is a mouth full of joy. The regular teas are nicely brewed. They will customize your sugar and ice levels too, which is amazing. Many places use a basic powder that already has sugar in it. Those usually come off as too sweet for me but it's all or nothing. I find "less" sugar to "half" sugar here to be perfect. They are very generous with the toppings so my husband orders his with "less bubbles" too. It's pretty easy to make your perfect drink if you know what you're doing or to explore fun flavors and textures if you're...

The menu is pretty extensive and there are many flavors to choose from, so you have plenty of options. In addition to the classic bubble tea flavors, they also have Wow Milk (a special blend of housemade bubble and lactose-free milk), espressos, and Kung Fu slush. Mediums range from $2.50-4.25 and larges range from $3.50-4.50. Toppings include bubbles (aka boba), nata jelly herbal jelly, red bean, mung bean, and pudding. 50 cents extra for each topping.

You can adjust the ice and sweetness levels. For ice, the levels are: regular ice, less ice, no ice, and warm. For sweetness, you can ask for extra (120%), regular (100%), less (70%), half (50%), little (30%), and zero. I would recommend going for at least 70% less sweetness, because I found that the regulars are very, very sweet. Like diabetes sweet.

I usually opt for a large KF milk green tea with boba. The boba was chewy and the flavor of the milk green tea was pretty good, albeit too sweet for my liking. It's a little overpriced for bubble tea but typical for this area. Kung Fu Tea is a pretty good boba joint, and it is one of the go-to, better boba places in the surrounding DC metropolitan area.

Nicely decorated interior but there isn't a ton of seating. Definitely not enough for several large groups, especially given how busy this place gets at practically all hours. WiFi is really fast (password is...

In the dimly lit emporium, the counter person loomed like a distant, foreboding mountain, unfriendly and ill-equipped for even the most basic of human interactions.

As I requested Boba, their ears seemed to malfunction and they inquired about toppings, which I promptly declined, assuming they had misunderstood the nature of my request. Yet, when I tried to correct the order after receiving it, they pushed back with unbridled ferocity, insisting that their misguided interpretation was the correct one. To add insult to injury, they slapped a hefty fee of 75 cents on my transaction, as if it were a trivial matter.

In a bid to reason with this inscrutable figure, I raised the issue of credit merchant fees, wondering aloud whether the charge was worth it. Alas, my words fell on deaf ears, as they remained obstinate and dismissive, treating me with undisguised contempt.

I left feeling like a pariah, misunderstood and maligned by this callous individual. Needless to say, I shall not darken their...