Tea room guide highlights the plight of our high streets

Tea room aficionado Joe Ellis' English Tea Room Tour Part 2 has revealed a startling trend for what is regarded as an English institution.



Joe Ellis, founder of Joe Ellis' Tea Room Guide and www.tea-room-guide.org.uk, toured 16 tea rooms around England but was only able to review 11 as five had been forced to shut down. 



Joe said: "It is heartbreaking to see these tea rooms either boarded up or replaced by fast food take away outlets. Sadly, this often happens due to circumstances outside the tea room owners’ control. It is endemic. English tea rooms up and down the country are struggling to survive, and yet each tea room is unique in its own way. 



"The High Streets of England are fast becoming mirror images of each other, with the same shops, restaurants and bars. The tea room is one of the last bastions which can give a town, village or city something different."



Harriett's Café and Tea Room, Peterborough
Photo from Upland Wolf Photostream.

On Joe's tour, he reviewed and awarded a recommendation status to each tea room he visited, with Harriett's Cafe and Tea Room in Peterborough being 'highly recommended,' nine other team rooms being awarded 'recommended' status and one picking up the Not My Cup of Tea (formerly 'moderate') ranking. 



Joe established www.tea-room-guide.org.uk to help and profile English tea rooms and what they provide to the community. He has visited been visiting tea rooms since the 1970's and a book entitled Joe Ellis' Tea Room Guide: A Guide to English Tea Rooms is soon to be published. 



Joe adds: "While there is a serious side to the plight that our tea rooms face, the idea of the website and the guide is also supposed to be a fun experience. We have a musical slide show of the tea rooms I visited appear on the website alongside full reviews with photographs. The site also offers short film clips of recommended and highly recommended tea rooms, including our first break into the 'movies' with Miss Mollett's High Class Tea Room in Appledore, Kent."



Joe's aim in 2011 is to make as many film clips as possible of English tea rooms, which will appear on www.tea-room-guide.org.uk and posted on YouTube. Joe hopes he will assist in their survival.

The next issue of Time for Tea magazine, (ISSN 2043-7161) is in full colour and free. It will feature tea rooms from tours one and two, tea features and many more interesting articles. 



For a free copy of Time for Tea, visit 
http://www.tea-room-guide.org.uk/timefortea

 

For more information, contact:
 Joe Ellis’ Tea Room Guide
, PO Box 262, 
Herne Bay, 
Kent
 CT6 9AW. 
Telephone: 01227 376180 or 
e-mail: admin@tea-room-guide.org.uk

Tea - the great soother of nerves

Location of Tchai-Ovna or 'house of tea' in Glasgow

Writing in the Herald Scotland, Tom Bruce-Gardyne argues that tea helps bring calm in a noisy world, whether it's PG Tips or Oolong. Click here for more details.

Trend towards combined bike and coffee shops

Rising oil prices mean that more and more people are getting on their bikes – and not necessarily to find a job! In the USA there has been a growing trend towards bike shops and caffs combined where cyclists can turn up, have their punctures fixed and enjoy a cup of coffee (or tea) while they wait. A lot of these kind of venues are springing up in bike-friendly US cities like Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and San Francisco.

Here's John Lehman fixing Diana Meyer's wheel in R & E Cycles
in Seattle. Photo courtesy of MSNBC.

For more information, click here.

Nick Clegg visits Headingley caff

The Hawkersgreen Café in Headingley near Leeds, run by Irene Tse, had a special visitor recently when Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister popped in for a chat.

The Cleggmeister – he likes an Americano

"After ordering an Americano, Nick Clegg was very courteous and sat chatting to members of the public, answering various questions, including concerns about the huge rise of university fees and the reforms of the NHS," said Irene.


Click here for more.

A cup of tea – still the UK's favourite brew

Nothing better than a teapot with a tea cosy!

While British pubs are closing, we are still drinking plenty of tea. In fact, we're consuming 165 million cups of the stuff every day – that's 60.2 billion per year. Click here for more details.

A bit more mooching around...

First, a note on Gee's in Derby, a place I visited some months ago, but didn't post anything. I went back there in early December 2010, when the snow started (remember the snow?). Well, I was staying in the European Hotel up the road from Gee's and my colleague and I decided to eat breakfast out rather than opt for the hotel breakfast. We chose Gee's and it was excellent. The last time I sat there listening to postman discuss the hung parliament situation, so it must have been May 2010, and I had mushroom omelette and chips with a mug of tea; this time I had breakfast: scrambled egg on toast and tea and there were plenty of tabloids around to read and a bit of banter with the proprietor, a cheery chappy who was always ready and prepared to be engaged in chit chat.

Gee's in Derby, a good alternative to the hotel breakfast.

We sat there reading The Sun and the Daily Star, all very droll, but nevertheless enjoyable. Later that day, with the snow coming down I tried to head back to London and managed it, just about, getting to Croydon, the slow way and emerging late at night on to the streets where I waited for a cab (they were charging double fare) to get home. Still, I made it.

If ever you're in Derby, holed up in a hotel and in need of a cheerful breakfast, head on down to Gee's as the prices are very reasonable, the atmosphere is great and the food's okay too.

Bill's, Lewes, East Sussex

More precisely, it's Bill's Produce Store in Lewes, East Sussex, a gem of place. If you're in the area, make a point of having lunch or even afternoon tea. It's one of those places that sells all sorts of stuff as well as being a caff. Perhaps 'caff' is not right – making it borderline territory for this blog – but it's great, a kind of caff/deli/fresh produce shop, very busy, wooden tables and licensed too. This is, however, a place a few doors down that this blog should be looking at; it's called something like Le Magazin, but either way, very quaint and much smaller than Bill's.

Bill's in Lewes: it's good but in danger of getting too big for its boots, ie it's getting a bit pricey!

Bill's is one of those places, I feel, that could easily become a victim of its own success. It's not cheap for a start and you do get that feeling that, while it is good, it's obviously trading on its possible 'legendary' status and charging the earth, making some customers wonder, "Hmmm...it was okay, but not THAT good...". A Bill's unit has been opened in London too, meaning it's suddenly become a chain operation and in danger of getting too big for its boots.

The Bakery, Lacock, Wiltshire

Now this really was a find! There's only one table on which to eat, so expect to share with strangers, but the table in question is large and made of wood, a farmhouse kitchen table, and the great thing is you can choose from many different baked items, such as sausage rolls, pies, pasties and so on. I would heartily recommend the steak and onion pasty. There's also a load of 'stuff' such as jams and chutneys and old fashion sweets in those big jars; think liquorice torpedos, rhubarb & custards, that sort of thing, and the women serving wear these bonnets, making them look kind of olde worlde – just like Lacock, which, incidentally, has been used extensively in the filming of the Harry Potter movies.

We were served by this very woman! I recommend the steak & onion pasty.

Good Life actor to open Black Isle café

Penelope Keith, of Good Life and To the Manor Born fame, has finally got the go-ahead to open a teashop in the village of Avoch on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. Click here for more information.

Penelope Keith – opening a caff in Avoch.