Tea for you and me

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

Author Archives: tealeaves


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Kemi’s Cafe

Craft in the Bay, The Flourish, Lloyd George Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 4QH  (View on map)

The view of the outside of the Craft in the Bay building.

This cafe was recommended to me as a good place to go for tea if I was visiting Cardiff and I wasn’t disappointed. Kemi’s Cafe is inside the Craft in the Bay building and had a lovely feel to it. I came down to the bay from Cardiff centre on the bendy bay bus and this was very near to the bus stop, which was handy. It also meant I showed astonishing self-discipline by going for a cup of tea first, for the sake of the blog, rather than running down towards the bay and getting all excited at seeing the sea.

Craft in the Bay has lots of beautiful art and craft items, all of which I wanted, none of which I could afford. It was an enjoyable look round though. Kemi’s Cafe had many different good-looking cake and pastry items, as well as salads and paninis. I resisted as I’d already had the Welsh cakes (plus this day was getting quite expensive – I’d been to one cafe already and had this one and at least one more to go to yet).

Tea, flowers and fountains at Kemi's Cafe.

The tea came in a teapot with a retro cup and saucer. I sat upstairs so I could gaze out the window at the fountains and the bay. Each table had a little vase of flowers and again the atmosphere was very calm.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £2 for a pot of tea.
Cake? A multitude of cake and some fetching salads and sarnies too.
Go again? Yes.


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National Museum Cardiff

Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP   (View on map)

View from my table of the stairs leading to the ceramics gallery.

Museums and art galleries tend to have reasonable tea, so I headed to the National Museum Cardiff to have a look around and to seek out a pot of tea. I didn’t have long to spend in Cardiff so I decided just to look at one gallery and spent my time looking at the ceramics gallery. It was peaceful and interesting, with lots of information about how the ceramics trade had flourished in Wales and how it was influenced. I’d recommend going to have a look at it.

The cafe was directly below the ceramics gallery. I’m not sure if this was a deliberate ploy so it would tie in with the tea pots on display upstairs, but I liked it all the same. As it was in Wales there were more blackboards advertising the beverages and food available than usual – as it all had to be in Welsh and English. Lots of signage in Welsh cafes.

I had a pot of tea and two Welsh cakes. I think it might have been the first time I’ve eaten Welsh cakes whilst in Wales and they were lovely. For those that have never tried a Welsh cake, I can only explain it as being a cross between a scone and a drop scone, with currants (or are they raisins?). The staff were very friendly and helpful, even though the cafe was almost full to capacity and it was a light airy place to have a cup of tea. The musuem shop also had some nice stuff in it, including some tea related items.

Tea and Welsh cakes at the National Museum Cardiff.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, a Rosie Fairtrade teabag, which was okay.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £1.30 for tea, 65p per Welsh cake, or £2.40 for two Welsh cakes and a pot of tea (saving a grand total of 20p).
Cake? Yes, the usual suspects as well as cookies and sandwiches.
Go again? Yes, I’d like to have a proper look round the museum too.


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The strange case of the dodgy jammy dodger

I’d purchased a ‘tea time selection’ pack of biscuits a few days previously and had decanted the pack into an airtight tub to keep the freshness in. I was happily sitting on the sofa and enjoying a cup of tea when I felt the need for a biscuit. After retrieving the tub from the kitchen I opened it up and selected a jammy dodger. It looked fine at first glance, but just felt a bit wrong. There was something not quite right that I couldn’t put my finger on. Then I realised – it was inside out.

Hastily, I pulled out another jammy dodger and confirmed my fears – that I had a jammy dodger that had been stuck together with the right sides facing inwards. I showed it to R, then photographed it so I could put it on here and share the wonderment, and then ate it. After all, an inside out jammy dodger is still a jammy dodger. And they do taste mighty good.

Normal jammy dodger on the left, shockingly inside out jammy dodger on the right.

 


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Suggestions for Cardiff?

So, I’m off to Cardiff in a few weeks and I’m looking for any suggestions. So far I’ve been told to go down to the bay and go to the Norwegian Church and to a place called ‘Craft in the bay’. If I have enough time they also recommended going to one of the arcades as there’s lots of little cafes there.

The Norwegian Church is intriguing, is it really as simple as a church that is Norwegian? I’ve been told ‘Craft in the bay’ sells crafty things and tea, so that sounds good.

Anyone have anything more to add? I’m only going to have one afternoon free, so there’s a limited amount of tea drinking I can do unfortunately. I’d like to make sure it’s good tea!


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Monkey Island Hotel

Bray-on-Thames, Berkshire, SL6 2EE.   (View on map)

Monkey Island Hotel is on an island, you drive into the car park and then cross a bridge to get to the hotel and grounds. The day we went there was a mini heatwave so it was baking hot and the cool breeze from the river as we crossed the bridge was most welcome.

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There was a private party in the grounds so it was busy outside, we sat inside in a room lined with wood panels. It wasn’t as hot as outside, but it was still very warm. We asked for some jugs of tap water as the journey had been long and hot. Though there were five of us, two of the party were too hot to eat much, so we ordered four afternoon teas between five.

There were four sandwiches per afternoon tea, one each of: ham; salmon; cream cheese and cucumber; and egg and cress. An odd touch was the crisps in between the sandwiches and my first reaction was that we were at a children’s party. They were ready salted and the day was so hot we did wonder if they had been added just to make sure no one keeled over from the heat. We enjoyed them – though I think we would have been less impressed if the weather had been colder.

The other strange twist were the scones. When the tiers of food were first brought there was some confusion as to why we had profiteroles instead of scones, or maybe we had both? On closer inspection we just had scones, but it looked like they had been backed in a shallow bun tin rather than a flat baking tray and so they were very round with a tin line across the side. It made them extremely crunchy.

The cakes made up for the scones and crisps as there were so many different ones and one of each variety for each afternoon tea: chocolate brownie; fruit tart; ginger cake with ginger snap on top; mini bakewell tart; cheesecake; chocolate eclair; and strawberries dipped in chocolate.

We had the usual problem of running out of milk and running out of jam (one tiny pot per afternoon tea, though there were four mini scones per afternoon tea).

SH noticed some more people enjoying afternoon tea as we left, only they had mini macaroons. We were jealous, especially as they were in many different colours, but were too full to go and ask for some.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, but Twinings teabag. Very limited black tea choice of English Breakfast and Earl Grey, the rest were fruit or herbal.
Milk jug? Yes, but we had to ask for refills twice.
Price? £14.95 for each afternoon tea.
Cake? Yes! All tiny.
Go again? It’s a good place to go if you’re already relatively near, but the scones mean I wouldn’t make a special effort.


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Another reason to drink loose leaf

We recently got ourselves a garden (we didn’t steal it or anything, just moved somewhere with one) and I’ve been looking into what you can compost and what you can’t compost. I’d like to compost my used tea and teabags (there’s quite a lot in our household, so I feel it’s worth composting them all) but came across the rather startling revelation that not all tea bags are 100% compostable. Most contain a percentage of plastic called polypropylene and this will be left behind if you pop them on your compost.

Loose leaf tea wins again!


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Tate Modern Members’ Room

Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG   (View on map)

My tea at the Tate Modern Members' Room

Thanks to JEM’s magic Tate membership (one plus guest and this time guest was me, hurrah) we could go and get a pot of tea from the tranquil Tate Modern Members’ Room. We’d gone to see the Miro exhibition and the cafes were very busy but thanks to the membership we could slip into the Members’ Room instead. The room is high up in Tate Modern with big windows and squishy sofas on one side and big windows and tables and chairs on the other side. There was also a terrace but it was too hot to sit outside when we went. It was peaceful and we stayed there for hours, much longer than we’d been in the exhibition for.

Cake so good we'd started eating it before I took a photo at the Tate Modern Members' Room

There was a wide range of tea on the menu and huge stack of teapots behind the counter, in a variety of colours. I was looking forward to the tea. I wasn’t let down with my Darjeeling and JEM said her English Breakfast was tasty as well. We shared a carrot cake and it had succulent raisins in it with just the right amount of spice. Yum.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Yes, loose leaf Jing tea.
Milk jug? Yes, a selection of different sized empty milk jugs with a carafe of milk so you could take as much as you wanted.

View of the bar/counter at the Tate Modern Members' Room (note the demolished cake bottom left)

Price? £1.95 for English Breakfast, Earl Grey or Darjeeling (£2 plus if wanted something more interesting, you could choose from green teas, oolong and more though, impressive). £2.95 for carrot cake. Also a big jug of water with glasses and slices of lemon and a bowl of ice that you could help yourself to, a bonus on such a warm day.
Cake? Yes, tarts and pastries and cakes.
Go again? Yes.

 


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Rafters

Hungerford Arcade, 26 High Street, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0NF   01488 683701   (View on map)

A view of the rafters in Rafters cafe in Hungerford Arcade

D and I were in Hungerford and looking for somewhere to have tea that I hadn’t been before, she suggested the cafe at the top of Hungerford Arcade. The cafe is called Rafters because you can see all the rafters as you are sitting in the apex of the shop. Hungerford Arcade is much bigger inside than it appears on the outside and every spare inch of space is given over to selling antiques, even the displays in the cafe are for sale.

Rafters was busy when we went in, always a good sign, and it took me a while to choose my lunch as the sandwiches, salads and pies on offer all looked good. I went for the soup in the end. D went up to inspect the cakes more closely before making her decision and said the scones looked so good she was going to have a cream tea, but with coffee instead of tea.

The staff called this a ‘cream coffee’ and though that makes logical sense, it still seems like a strange term to me. But then R did used to think that a ‘cream tea’ was tea with cream on the top, like some Frankenstein version of hot chocolate and when we ordered him an actual cream tea was disappointed that he’d already experienced it. He wasn’t disappointed for long though, as a cream tea is still a good thing.

Soup, tea and D's 'cream coffee' at Rafters

Anyway, my generous portion of soup arrived with a warmed half brown baguette and it was very tasty. D’s cream coffee arrived with a warm homemade scone, clotted cream, strawberry jam, butter and a sliced strawberry. And a filter coffee. My Earl Grey tea was a Twinings tea bag affair and there was a proper milk jug. D saved me some scone as she said the strawberry jam was very good and I had to try it – she was right, it was good. Tasting of strawberry instead of jam, an amazingly strawberry strawberry jam.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No, but Twinings teabag.
Milk jug? Yup, one for D and I to share that was actually big enough for both of us to take milk. Hurrah!
Price? £2.20 for the Earl Grey, £4.75 for the soup, £5.25 for the cream tea (or coffee).
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes.


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Case Histories

No, they haven’t opened a tea room in honour of the Kate Atkinson novel, this is just a post about tea and the series of Kate Atkinson novels featuring Jackson Brodie. Ever since reading the latest in the series Started Early, Took My Dog and reading that Jackson Brodie was taking tea in Bettys, I’ve meant to put something on here about the tea in the novels. A sort of celeb spotting for fans of places to drink tea.

The nudge that I needed to post this was watching the first episode in the BBC adaptation of the novels last night. During the episode Jackson did indeed have some tea in a plant filled tea room with columns that looked like somewhere I need to go. If I remember rightly, the novel is set in Cambridge and the BBC drama last night was in Edinburgh, so no chance in finding the location in the book. Did anyone recognise it?

The second episode is on tonight, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any future tea venues.


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Caversham Artists Trail

Tea and 'Nutella and banana' cake on the Caversham Artists Trail

Not a full review as this is only a temporary source of tea, but it was so lovely I thought I’d stick it on here. The Caversham Artists Trail is on Sat 7th and Sun 8th May 2011 and then again on Fri 13th to Sun 15th May 2011. People exhibit their art and works for sale in houses and you can go round and see them. Some offer refreshments – L and I really enjoyed the tea and cake we had at number one on the trail. There are even some artists who make tea related things – such as cups! So that’s another reason to take a look. Go see, drink tea and enjoy!