The English Tea Shop
Every country has their speciality. The Italians have their coffee. The French have their boulangerie’s (fresh bread twice a day), The American’s have their Diners and McDonalds. With the English it is the traditional tea shop.
These are some characteristics of an English tea shop:
- People speak quietly. ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ is one old motto that has a lot to be said for it.
- Tea should come in a teapot.
- Selection of homebaked cakes.
- Tea should be served in bone china. Tea taste’s much better this way.
- Tea always tastes better in a tea shop. I have never understood this mystery. But, you can never satisfactorily recreate the experience in your own home.
- Toasted teacakes with jam make the perfect accompaniment for a pot of tea.
Cycling Cafes
Believe it or not, I never drank anything but water until I was 15. It was when I started cycling that I was introduced to the delights of the English Tea shop and inevitably I was pressurised into forsaking a strict diet of tap water to join in the communal tea drinking. There are some very good cafes which welcome cyclists
Is English Breakfast Tea Grown in England?
Yorkshire Tea and English Breakfast might give the impression that tea is grown in England. Unfortunately, this is not true. If you go to the Yorkshire Dales, you will see beautiful scenery and lots of sheep; but, not many tea plantations. Apparantely, the cold rain is not particularly liked by the tea plants. But, for one enterprising Yorkshireman this was no reason not to name a variety of tea after ‘God’s own Country’Â By the way, Yorkshire Tea is a very good, strong blend. It actually does taste better in Yorkshire (or anyplace where the water is soft.) than down south.