Tea for you and me

Join me on my epic quest to find the best tea ever

Author Archives: tealeaves


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Ben’s Cookies

12 Kensington Arcade, Kensington High Street, London, W8 5SF

Dark chocolate and ginger cookie with tea at Ben's Cookies

I was 40 minutes early to meet A at the station so I needed somewhere nearby to have a cup of tea and I spotted a branch of Ben’s Cookies. I’ve seen these around but never had time to go in so I pounced on it, even though the only seating available was those high stool things that I always fall off. I ordered a regular tea and a dark chocolate and ginger cookie. The cookies are all different flavours, shapes and sizes and sold by weight which struck me as a very fair way of doing things.

The tea was fine – cardboard cup and teabag (nice to see a Fairtrade teabag) and proper milk rather than the evil mini plastic pots. The cookie was divine – huge chunks of chocolate and ginger and a gooey outside. Yum.

I also loved the Quentin Blake illustration of the boy – Ben? – eating a cookie. Another reason to go buy more cookies.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Big jug.
Price? £1.20 for the tea, £1.40 for the cookie (0.0098g at £14.25 per kg)
Cake? A myriad of cookies, sold by weight.
Go again? Would buy the cookies but probably not worth going again just for the tea. Maybe if they had chairs and I could be sure of not falling over.


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The Tea Kiosk

Caversham Court, Church Road, Caversham, Reading.  Please note the tea kiosk is only open Thursday-Sunday (and Bank Holidays), April – October.

The view of the first section of Caversham Court, with the 'footprint' of the old house.

The Tea Kiosk is a tea kiosk in Caversham Court. Caversham Court is a bit of Caversham owned by the council – the gardens were redeveloped with lottery funding in 2008 and opened to the public in 2009. The kiosk is in the gardens and run by different charities with the profits going to those charities. A nice example of community partnership working and tea. There is also a Friends group and more info about the gardens can be found on their website.

Mug of tea and custard Danish (my favourite kind of Danish pastry) at The Tea Kiosk in Caversham Court Gardens.

I’ve gone a bit photo happy here as the gardens are beautiful. They lead down to the river and are well worth a visit. There are toilets in the gardens and this, along with the tea kiosk, makes it a great place to visit.

There were a selection of drinks available the day I went, including tea, coffee, hot chocolate and squash. Also a selection of homemade cakes and some Danish pastries. Yum. Very cheap too – everything was £1. As the kiosk is run by different charities on different days, I’m not sure if these prices stay the same every day, but I’m sure there won’t be too much difference.

View of the Thames from my table.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Milk added by the lovely kiosk ladies.
Price? £1 for tea, £1 for any bit of cake.
Cake? Yes – and all homemade.
Go again? Yes, but it’s only open Thurs-Sun (and Bank Holidays), April-October so I probably won’t be heading down here until 2011 now.

View of the kiosk (far left) from another bit of the garden.


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Cerise

The Forbury Hotel, 26 The Forbury, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3EJ

 

Teapots and sandwiches at Cerise

When KD said she wanted to go for afternoon tea in Reading and that it looked quite reasonable at £15 a head I was very impressed. When she mentioned it was in The Forbury I was astounded to realise I’d never thought of checking here before.

 

Cerise is the restaurant inside The Forbury Hotel and we headed there on a Sunday afternoon to sample the afternoon tea. They offer an afternoon tea for £15 – which includes a round of sandwiches each, two scones, a selection of patisserie cakes and tea. If you pay £20 then it includes a glass of champagne as well.

There was no room on the table for the cakes and the sandwiches, so we had a 'cakes in waiting' area.

All the food was extremely tasty and we had problems finishing off all the cakes (though we managed it in the end, naturally). There were some hiccups with the afternoon – bizarrely, we weren’t given any knives (though we each had a fork and a spoon). As we were in a private booth area we couldn’t easily attract the attention of the waiting staff so we improvised with the spoons and everything worked out fine. We also constantly ran out of milk – only two small jugs for six people didn’t seem like enough. The tea isn’t loose leaf but I’ll forgive it that as the food was good and it’s very reasonably priced. This place is more about the food than the tea, I feel.

Once the sandwiches were consumed the cakes made it onto the table. Take a look at the mini mound of scones as well.

I would recommend afternoon tea at Cerise as an end to a hard morning of shopping or a good place to meet friends when you need a proper catch up. The atmosphere is calm and private and the food was very tasty.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, Twinings teabags.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £15 for afternoon tea, £20 for champagne afternoon tea.
Cake? Yes – a selection including blackberry macaroon, fruitcake, strawberry tart, chocolate something, meringue and an eclair. Mini fruit and plain scones too, with clotted cream and strawberry jam.
Go again? Yes, definitely. You should too.



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A recommendation!

I often ask for recommendations but in the two years of doing this blog I have only had one. Today I got my second, which is very exciting. The place in question is ‘The Chocolate Teapot Tearoom’ in Esher, Surrey. I have an address and not much else as I can’t find any internet mention of them, but hopefully I can check that one out soon.

If you have any other recommendations for me, let me know! You can leave me the details on the form here.


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Boulters Restaurant and Bar

Boulters Lock Island, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 8PE

The tea and the stunning view of the river.

Boulters Restaurant and Bar doesn’t seem to think we need an apostrophe for ‘Boulters Lock’ and so I haven’t put one in, but I feel there needs to be one. Confusingly, the River Thames website sometimes uses one and sometimes doesn’t; I’ll stick to using one when talking about the place and not using one when referring to the bar and restaurant.

Anyway, confusing apostrophe use aside, the river looks beautiful here and the view from the balcony of the bar is stunning. We were lucky enough to have a sunny day with blue skies and to get the last table on the balcony for lunch.

This is not the cheapest place to eat or drink but the terrace bar is much cheaper than the brasserie downstairs. We had a chicken ceasar ciabatta which sounds odd, but was very good and not too dry. The tea was over £2 and yet still didn’t come in a pot, which was disappointing, but the tea bag used was a good one.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £2.05 for tea, £7ish for the sandwich.
Cake? Puddings and scones rather than cake.
Go again? Yes, as the view is stunning.


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Happy Birthday Tea for you and me!

The range of cakes at Angel food bakery

Ah, it was two years ago that I sat in Cafe Nero and thought, ‘This is rubbish, something must be done’ and the idea for this blog was born.

In that time I’ve clocked up over 100 reviews and sampled tea in five different countries. It’s had over 4,000 visits and the most read review has been Angel food bakery.

I’d love to mark the occasion by finding some new gem of a tea provider, anyone got any suggestions?

Happy Birthday Tea for you and me!


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Forno

126 High Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1PT   01628 670051

Tea, ciabatta and tea cake at Forno

We were looking for somewhere to drink tea and get lunch that I hadn’t already stuck on the blog and Forno had the dubious honour of being the first place we came to that fitted the criteria.

It all turned out okay though as Forno is an Italian restaurant that has a good choice of things that could be eaten for lunch. There is a list of fillings and then a choice of bread, ciabatta or jacket potato to have them with. I plumped for the tea cakes and was pleasantly surprised when they arrived and turned out not to be hot cross buns. (You’d be surprised at the number of times I have been served hot cross buns when I’ve ordered tea cakes.)

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £1.50 for a pot.
Cake? Not really, some deserts, some muffins listed (but sat on the counter in plastic packets so I didn’t order any), teacakes and the usual Italian restaurant fare.
Go again? Not for tea, there are other places in Maidenhead I’d prefer, but would come back for lunch or for an evening meal.


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French and Fresh Bakery

No. 2 The Colonnade, High Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1QL.

Tea at French and Fresh Bakery

The French and Fresh Bakery always smells gorgeous when I walk past as they bake everything on the premises and bread cooking is a heavenly smell. The sign above the door says it’s a Boulangerie and Patisserie and it certainly smells like one. Inside there are rows of bread and tarts, cakes, quiches, pizza slices. The cakes and tarts start at around £3 and a baguette to eat in is £4, so I just stuck with my tea.

A pot of tea to drink in was £2 but the tea pot was relatively big  (the cup was huge, making the tea pot in the photo look all tiny, but that’s just a trick of the cup, I promise you) and it was a satisfying and relaxing tea drinking session.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, Twinings tea bag.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £2 for a pot.
Cake? Lots of good complicated cakes, tarts, quiches, salads, etc and biscuits in tins as well.
Go again? Yes.


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Crumbs…

29 Queen Victoria Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 1SY   07947 719084

Tea and a Thai chicken melt at Crumbs...

Crumbs… is a little cafe just off the main shopping street in Reading. It has sandwiches, paninis, wraps, salads, jacket potatoes and some cake slices. It also has some outside seating which is a good thing, but it was a bit chilly to sit outside when I went there. The outside seating had normal height chairs but the inside seating was the high table and stool like seating. These make me nervous as I’m not very good at staying on them, but I managed okay so all was well.

I plumped for a Thai chicken melt ciabatta for a very reasonable £2.60 and a cup of tea. The drinks menu states that you can have ‘English Breakfast Tea (proper tea)’ or ‘Earl Grey’. I would argue it’s all proper tea, but I appreciate the sentiment.

A good place to go for a quick bite to eat and a mug of tea.

Teapot? No, it came ready made with milk in.
Leaf tea? Presume not.
Milk jug? No, came with milk.
Price? £1.40 for ‘proper tea’, 1.70 for Earl Grey. My ciabatta was £2.60.
Cake? A couple of varieties of loaf cake.
Go again? Yes, if I wanted a quick lunch.


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The Rowbarge

Station Road, Woolhampton, Berkshire, RG7 5SH

Brioche bread and butter pudding with custard, a pot of Earl Grey tea and a hot chocolate at The Rowbarge

Somewhere in West Berkshire is a pub I occasionally used to drive past. I seem to remember it was by a level crossing and that it looked lovely. I described this to J and she said she thought she knew the one I meant so we arranged to meet up at The Rowbarge. It turned out not to be the one I was thinking of, but it was very lovely. It’s on the banks of the Kennet and Avon canal and has a gorgeous outside seating area, bit cold for us at the time but I imagine in the summer it’s heaven.

The food was gastro pub style and tasty, with a range of prices so we managed to have main courses around £8, though the prices headed up to £15. Naturally I ordered tea after our main meal and we also shared a brioche bread and butter pudding with custard that was a good hearty pudding. The tea came in a pot with a Twinings tea bag and was a good cup of tea, though there was only Breakfast or Earl Grey to choose from (I’m sorry but fruit teas are not teas, they’re infusions, unless they are actually tea with fruit but they weren’t in this case). J’s hot chocolate was also approved of.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Twinings tea bag.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £1.75 for a pot of tea, £2 for hot chocolate, £4.25 for bread and butter pudding.
Cake? No, just puddings and main meals, starters etc.
Go again? Yes, they were advertising a two course Sunday lunch for £14.95 and that seems like a good plan to me.