Poker champions roll the dice in Rockville with a colorful new fusion cafe

We’re not bluffing: Rockville’s newest Asian fusion cafe exists thanks to a couple of poker players.

After winning millions through online poker, brothers Di and Hac Dang pivoted to the restaurant industry, co-founding the DMV-based Happy Endings Hospitality restaurant group to fund several fast-casual spots including Teas’n You.

The result: An adorable, sleek cafe space drenched in pastel pink and filled with colorful fusion pastries, spicy fried chicken and a slew of both classic and inventive teas.

The new Rockville storefront is the second location — and the first in Maryland — for Teas’n You, which first opened in 2017 in Tysons, Virginia.

Odds of ordering well are high, featuring a breadth of snacks and drinks from across Asia, often fused with flavors from Latin America, Europe and the U.S. See: the Vietnamese coffee-based tiramisu brownie, black sesame Portuguese egg tarts, pumpkin spice chai milk tea and ube tres leches cake.

One of the fall seasonal menu items, the ube tres leches cake is pretty as it is tasty: dark purple layers of moist cake with a light purple, vanilla-y ube frosting. You’re going to want to snap a photo or two before digging in.

The rest of the pastry display case is plenty colorful, too, including bright pink strawberry cupcakes, electric blue Cookie Monster cookies, and sugar-coated donuts filled with lime green pandan filling.

Beverages range from creamy milk tea with chewy tapioca boba pearls or fruit-filled tea concoctions to strong, nutty Vietnamese coffee and a lychee berry slushy.

An extensive matcha menu including mango, blue butterfly tea and horchata matchas also features what the cafe refers to as “the world’s first oolong matcha,” swapping the traditional earthy, finely-ground green tea leaves for a slightly smoother, bolder flavor.

Crispy halal fried chicken is served two ways: as basil popcorn chicken or a Taiwanese chicken sandwich. Each can be served mild or spicy. If you’re going the spicy route, opt for a side of the sweet Thai basil sauce to cool down.

It’s rare to feel the need to call out a fast-casual spot’s packaging, but the branding, cutesy labels and insulated, reusable to-go bags are emblematic of the rest of the Teas’n You experience: meticulously curated, adorable and worth your money.

Teas’n You is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. — with future plans to extend to late-night — now at 838 Rockville Pike, Unit C, Rockville.