Kevan Frazier has a lot on his plate. The Asheville native has been executive director of programs for Western Carolina University in Asheville for over 10 years. He owns Asheville by Foot Walking Tours and Well Played Board Game Café, and he spent much of 2024 campaigning for Asheville City Council.
In the November election, he just missed finishing with enough votes to win one of three open spots, so he found himself with a little spare time. Frazier almost immediately filled those idle moments with the December purchase of the downtown Dobra Tea shop from Andrew Snavely, who opened that original location in 2010. (The West Asheville Dobra tearoom opened in 2016; the East Asheville shop opened in 2023.)
Frazier has been a tea drinker since he was young. “Somehow in all my late nights as a grad student, I never drank coffee,” he says. “I love the smell of it, but it’s not my drink. I’m not anti-coffee, I’m pro-tea.”
Asheville by Foot Walking Tours grew from the former history professor’s passion for taking his students on tours of downtown Asheville. It became a business in 2014 at the urging of a friend who worked at a downtown hotel.
Frazier opened Well Played Board Game Café after another friend told him about a growing trend of board game gathering spots. After extensive research into the business model and building a massive game library, he launched it on Wall Street in March 2017, closed it with COVID-19, then came back twice as big in 2022 in the former Chrysler dealership building on the South Slope.
Frazier says he’s always loved Dobra’s massive tea selection and peaceful vibe and has considered the downtown shop a “respite.” After all three local Dobra shops closed due to Tropical Storm Helene, he closely followed the Dobra newsletter for updates. Around the time Snavely reopened the East and West Asheville shops in early December, Frazier learned from the Dobra newsletter that he was seeking a buyer for the downtown location.
After considering it for a day or two, Frazier reached out to Snavely, and they arranged for a conversation over tea at the downtown Dobra. Frazier says he appreciated Snavely’s commitment to ensuring the Lexington Avenue shop would maintain the Dobra ethos and continue to operate in harmony with the other stores. A mutual agreement was reached, and after Snavely provided extensive training of Frazier’s nine new employees, the downtown Dobra Tea reopened on Jan. 24.
The drinks menu remains the same, with over 120 hot teas, four dozen other tea-based beverages — including bubble tea — and hot chocolate. The shop’s small menu of savory snacks won’t change, but Frazier says he intends to expand the selection of sweets, all of them gluten-free.
He laughs when he notes that the biggest change is personal. Since Dobra Tea opened 15 years ago, it has served as a quiet, stress-free sanctuary for him. “I made the decision early on not to do work there,” he says. “But I’ve always found a way to do what I love, so I’m sure it will work out.”
Dobra Tea’s downtown location is at 78 N. Lexington Ave. It opens at 10 a.m. daily; closing time is 6 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday. For more information, visit avl.mx/cfk.
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.