I could almost forgive the whole charging for tea thing as long as they don’t automatically bring it to the table. From your story, it sounds like they just plopped the teapot down as usual, instead of you having to order it. If they charge $2.50 per person for tea, that person better damn well have to say “I’d like tea” to the waiter.
Italian restaurants put down bread and butter with your meal for free, and if they decide to charge for that “luxury”, patrons need the opportunity to say no.
Not only that, but $25.00 for a pot of tea is outrageous!
Several years back, I heard of a restaurant opening in New York where the prices seemed really great, till the patrons got the bill. It seems they were charging separate for use of the cutlery! Closed pretty quickly as I recall…
OK well that’s a relief because I was about to suggest they fine you for a breach of taste for using BBQ sauce with a Chinese meal 
Our office cafeteria charges for butter, jelly, sugar etc. (napkins are still free:p); I think the prices range from 2-10 cents. I’m not sure when this started, as I stopped eating there about ten years ago when they jacked up their prices and, being a cheap SOB, I decided I’d rather bring a sandwich from home than pay $3.00 for a small salad.
A few years ago they suddenly put up signs that you were now limited to one 14oz cup of ice for free and a second cup was (IIRC) 3 cents. If you brought your own container it was 25 cents to fill it. This was in response to people who were bringing in quart- and gallon-sixed jugs and filling them with ice.
Oh, no - we asked for tea. We found it odd that they didn’t bring one right to the table, as is custom at a Chinese restaurant. When we asked for it, however, they didn’t mention there was an extra charge. I’m surprised they didn’t charge us for the fried noodles, too.
Esprix
I miss free tea and free water. In a lot of European McDonalds they charge you for ketchup and mayo. Yep. Cheap bastards. No, it doesn’t come free with the fries. At least all the international fastfood establishments in Hungary do this. This includes Micky D’s, BK and Wendy’s.
Now it seems to me that Chinese restaurants around here charge for a pot of tea, but - god, if I had to guess, I would be startled to find that it was any more than about $3.
$25.00 US for a pot of tea is absurd! Hell, $2.50 for a cup of tea is absurd! What the hell kind of tea is it, platinum tea? What did they do, smuggle the leaves out of Xinjiang in a metallic egg hidden up Jiang Zemin’s arse?
I could go to the damn Second Cup and buy a cup of tea for $1.50 , and they probably have more flavours.
Just to be clear, it was a $2.50 per person charge - we did, in fact, go through several pots of tea. It was not, in fact, anything other than plain, ordinary jasmine (?) tea, the kind one usually gets in a Chinese restaurant. (There wasn’t anything special about the BBQ sauce, either, except that it was rather bland…)
Esprix
There are some restaurants here where you can get a pot of Chinese “tea” (wink, wink) for $40 (that’s almost exactly US$25) after last call (wink, wink). But $25 for regular Chinese tea? ::checks forum:: Holy fuck!
Really? I’ve never been to a Chinese food restaurant that served free tea…even the ones that charge $40-$50 a person. I guess things are just different here.