Best of 2003: Best Place To Meet Cool Asian Youth

TeaZone

4688 Convoy Street, Kearny Mesa

858-279-6888

They come from Taipei, from Seoul, from Asia's trendiest capitals. They carry walnut-size cell phones that twitter like sparrows. They drive sassy low-slung subcompacts with dazzling rims and tinted windows. They play cunning electronic games the likes of which have yet to be seen on this side of the Pacific. They come to TeaZone for the iced tapioca milk tea and the stacks of dog-eared Taiwanese fashion magazines. While they lounge around TeaZone, they flirt with each other. They do their biochem and computer-science homework. They sing along with the sappy Taiwanese-pop love ballads. They solve a few organic chemistry problems. They rough-draft a program in C++. They like to talk to Americans about where they're from. They're the future of our computer and biotech industries.