Tea for you and me

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

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Angel food bakery

20 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1HB

The range of cakes at Angel food bakery

Angel food bakery is another cup cake cafe. It seems they are popping up all over the place now, a few streets away there was another shop being fitted out that seemed to be called ‘Madame Cupcake’ though it wasn’t open yet. The Hummingbird Bakery is the first one I heard of, and the one that is mentioned in the press as being the originator of the cupcake craze, but I’ve not made it there yet. I have been to Sweet tooth cupcakery and preferred that to Angel food bakery because of the attention to tea and the atmosphere.

The Angel food bakery offered a range of cupcakes and had a steady stream of customers. It also had double height chocolate cake for sale. Or you could order your very own giant cupcake for a party, two were picked up in the 20 minutes I was there.

Red velvet cupcake and tea at Angel food bakery

I picked a ‘red velvet’ cupcake that looked good but I think was just a normal sponge mix with red food colouring and cream cheese or buttercream topping. I knew I’d heard of the ‘red velvet’ cupcake before, and thought that perhaps it was famous from being from Angel food bakery. I’ve just checked and it’s famous for being from The Hummingbird Bakery. I’m not that keen on the toppings and after eating the cupcake I did feel a bit sick, but otherwise it was very nice. I bought a blue topped one with stars on to take home to R, which he said was excellent.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £3.60 for tea and a red velvet cupcake.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes, but I’ll try the double height chocolate cake next time.


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Cafe Delice

40 Kensington Gardens, Brighton, BN1 4AL

Brighton Pier

Cafe Delice is one of many small quirky cafes in this area of Brighton but I picked it because it was purple and had a lot of people in it compared to the others. I chose tea and a brownie. I don’t know why I keep trying to find a brownie to beat the ones that Delicious… has, I should just spend more time in Delicious….

Anyway, I had tea in a mug with a teabag and a brownie that was not as good as the ones in Delicious… but was really quite strange. Normally the easiest way to get brownies wrong is to overcook them so they aren’t gooey in the middle. This was very solid and very stodgy, but also tasted uncooked. I’m making it sound much worse than it was, I did like it, I’ve just never come across that form of brownie before.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £1.50 for the tea and £2.10 for the bizarre brownie.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes, it’s also got free wifi.


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Bridge that gap cafe

Customer Service Centre, Town Hall, St Ives Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 1RF

Tea in an excellent teapot at Bridge that gap cafe

Bridge that gap cafe is in the Town Hall and has a good range of lunch food to eat in or take away and of course, tea. It’s run by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and staffed partly with people with learning disabilities. I had a jacket potato with cheese and it came with salad as  well, very good.

The tea pot was very impressive and from Whittards if I’m not mistaken as I have matching plates. Worth a visit if you need somewhere for a pot of tea at a reasonable price. And though the pot looks small it had a rounded bottom so is normal teapot size really.

Teapot? Yes and an excellent one at that.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? About £1.50 for a pot of tea.
Cake? Not much, some biscuits etc.
Go again? Yes.


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Ikea, Croydon

Ikea Croydon, Valley Park, off Purley Way, Croydon, CR0 4UZ

Tea and far too much of everything else at Ikea

I like Ikea. I don’t care what people say, I like the style and the prices. I’ve also only been 3 or 4 times in my life so perhaps that makes the difference. My brother and I were heading to Ikea so I could get various items that I’d had my eye on and so he could buy some bedding in order for R and I to stay over.

I got an Ikea family card which gets you free tea – yes, weekday daytimes you get free tea (and coffee, but who cares about that?). The food is very cheap and we got a bit too excited when we first got there and had a fry up each for 99p. Then for lunch we again bought too much food. We couldn’t finish it. It was fun though, just for the free tea.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? No, those evil plastic pots.
Price? Free! The tea was free! The rest came to around £10.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes.


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Capture the castle

46 High Street, Rochester, Kent, ME1 1LD

Rochester Castle

I was driving and needed a cup of tea but didn’t know where I could find one. I saw a brown sign on the road saying that Rochester was a historic town and so I headed for Rochester. Brown signs tend to mean tea, they’re a good bet if you’re somewhere you don’t know.

Rochester is a lovely town that is apparently the inspiration for many of the settings in Charles Dickens’s novels. There are many shops with themed names relating to Dickens but the credit crunch has bitten here and there were lots of empty shops. Capture the castle is a shop selling ‘shabby chic’ and other fashionable items but also had three or four tables and sold tea and cake. There were some lovely Christmas candles and other items but I was feeling broke so didn’t purchase anything.

Cake at Capture the castle

I sat at the only spare table and ordered cake and tea. The shop and the cafe area are beautifully well presented with very helpful and considerate staff. A lovely cafe that I would recommend for light refreshments, they didn’t have many main meal items.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £4.75 (?) for tea and cake.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes.

Tea and cake at Capture the castle


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Daisy’s Coffee Shop

The Herb Farm, Peppard Road, Sonning Common, Reading, Berkshire, RG4 9NJ

Tea and chocolate brownie at Daisy's Coffee Shop

The Herb Farm is a friendly and welcoming garden centre specialising in herbs and gifts. When I went it had a very tasteful display of high quality Christmas decorations and if I’d had more money or space to put them up I would have bought lots of them.

Daisy’s Coffee Shop has a good number of seats, some of which are in the conservatory with views over the garden. The staff are friendly and the tea came in a pot. I tried a chocolate brownie but it was nowhere near as good as the ones in Delicious… but then they never are. It wasn’t a bad brownie though and there was a range of other cakes on offer. I would recommend a trip, especially if you need a gift or a plant or a birthday card.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £4 ish for tea and a brownie, I think.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes.


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The Dorchester

Park Lane, Mayfair, London, W1K 1QA

An out of focus ballerina at the Dorchester

The Dorchester is another of the big name hotels in London that is famous for providing a good afternoon tea. We went there for Dad’s birthday and weren’t disappointed. I booked the tea well in advance so that we could get space and booked it earlier than Dad’s birthday so that we wouldn’t pay the very high price for Christmas Carol singers. When we arrived we were met by ballerinas in outfits relating to Alice in Wonderland. Apparently October was the month of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. This was all well and good, but sent me into a panic as I’d booked the standard afternoon tea which was considerably cheaper than the Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea and we hadn’t allowed for an increase in price. My Mum took over and spoke to the MaÎtre d’ and they said we had booked before the special event was planned and that they would give us the normal price. As it was a birthday they also offered my Dad a complimentary glass of champagne.

Tea pots and cake stands at the Dorchester

We had our own waiter who was superb and served us tea and then a succession of waiters and waitresses served us sandwiches and scones followed by beautiful cakes all themed round Alice in Wonderland. The students from the school of ballet also gave a short performance/reading from Alice in Wonderland which we couldn’t see from where we were. We were near the pianist though who asked us for any requests and happily played them. My Dad was also presented with a glorious chocolate birthday cake and boxes of the cakes we couldn’t eat. The service was impeccable.

The Dorchester is well worth a visit but I was more impressed with the Ritz. The waiter there knew the tea by smell and didn’t have labels on the pots. And the messing up of the booking also took the shine off the Dorchester. There was also the glitz of the Ritz. If you’re going to spend a lot of money on afternoon tea it may as well be the most gilded afternoon tea you can find.

The Alice in Wonderland themed patisserie items at the Dorchester

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Yes.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £34.50 for afternoon tea.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Not at the moment, I’d like to try some of the other big London hotels first or maybe the Ritz again.


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Patisserie Valerie

11-13 Acorn Walk, The Centre MK, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK9 3AD

Tea and ice cream at Patisserie Valerie

Milton Keynes is a strange place. I hate to say it as I so wanted it to be otherwise, but it is a strange place. I’d never been before and was looking forward to disproving all the stereotypes about concrete and roundabouts and coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t so bad after all. I was half right. The roundabouts I didn’t mind, I quite like driving round roundabouts and I had a sat nav so I wasn’t confused. The concrete also didn’t bother me, the wide streets made me think of Sweden and I liked the space.

The strangest thing about Milton Keynes is that there is no town centre. I headed towards the middle of the town and found a shopping centre. I walked through it and out the other side and found a dual carriageway. I tried a different exit and found another dual carriageway. This carried on for a while. I walked round the whole shopping centre and tried to find somewhere that resembled a normal town centre where I would find a cafe I could blog about. I couldn’t find anywhere. I tried the theatre area and the park and no luck. The centre of Milton Keynes is a shopping centre called ‘The Centre MK’. I found the ceiling low and being inside all day when I wanted to be outside very oppressive. I didn’t like it. In the end I ended up back where I started and went to the cafe I had first seen.

Patisserie Valerie is a chain of cafes that has patisserie style gateaux and pastries. I was hot from all my exploring so I had ice cream instead. It was very good and the tea was loose leaf.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Yes.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £2 for tea and £1.75 for ice cream, between £2-£4 for macaroons and cake.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes, seems like the best cafe in the centre of Milton Keynes.


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Cafe Mei

205 Upper Richmond Road, London, SW15 6SQ     020 8789 9988

Tea at Cafe Mei

This doesn’t look like much from the outside but inside it’s small but perfectly formed and smells divine. The owner is a patisserie chef by trade and all the cakes, pastries and cookies are made by her. This is an up and coming road with many posh shops selling not quite useful things but this cafe does excellent tea with a homemade biscuit for only £1. A treat.

Teapot? No.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? No, milk put in with it.
Price? £1 for tea and biscuit.
Cake? Yes and many other lovely looking things.
Go again? Yes.


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The Walk

12 Bridlesmith Walk, Nottingham, NG1 2GR

The view from the doorway of The Walk - look at the cake!

The Walk was the second stop on our tea tour of Nottingham and we weren’t disappointed. It has restaurant opening hours and opens for lunch onwards, on the Saturday we went we turned up 15 minutes after opening time and there was a queue. This cheered us no end – tea that causes queues must be good.

We didn’t have to queue for long, though had we wanted to sit outside we could have jumped the queue but we decided against it as it was a bit nippy.

Afternoon tea was on the menu but even we were tempted by the other things on there. Everything on the menu sounded excellent and the food on other tables smelt wonderful. I’d love to go back and eat more some other time.

There was no tea menu on the menu but we asked for our favourites and got them. We ordered an afternoon tea each which took a long time to arrive. We asked the waitress and she said they were putting the finishing touches to it. When it did arrive we understood why it had taken so long. Everything was fresh and tasted heavenly. The only problem is a familiar one – there were a range of cakes and pastries and none were the same. How to decide who gets what? How to decide what to eat if we’re not even sure what they are? In the end we took the honourable way of splitting every item into quarters and tasting each one. They were all lovely. My only negative point would be that the service was very slow, even drinks took a long time to arrive. It was very busy but perhaps more staff on a Saturday would be wise.

Afternoon tea at The Walk

Later we discovered that they will be introducing a tea menu and had tea sample boxes with vials of each type of tea to smell and choose from. We also spotted that the customers outside in the garden had blankets provided to keep out the chill. A momentary worry that we chose the wrong option was dispelled when we reassured ourselves our tea would have got cold if we had gone outside. On cue, a waitress came past with a tray of teapots in hand knitted tea cosies. Oh well, next time.

Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? Yes.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? £15.95 for afternoon tea.
Cake? Yes, so much of it!
Go again? Yes.