Yesterday DH cut the grass and gathered some bits of carp ready to go to the Tip. My brother and I visited a nearby large town, in search of somewhere to have a proper up of tea. Coffee shops just can't make decent tea, there are several of us having business in this large town in a couple of weeks, and we really wanted to find somewhere that we could get a proper one.
We planned to visit a few cafes and restaurants and try the teas. They needed to be within a few minutes of the train station and the TownHall, so we had a defined area to look in. We both like tea, but we knew it wou;d be difficult to sensibly sample more than, say, four cups, so I'd compiled a shortlist of likely venues.
The main car park was closed to casual parking for the next two months. That in itself was good to learn now rather than on the day. Against my brother's better judgement, we parked in another central car park. My brother said he'd parked here befoire, and it always stank.
He was right. It was the most expensive car park in the town, and the stairs reeked. We'd had to park on the 11th floor. We took the lift (which I never normally do) because I couldn't face that stench for the length of time it would take me to walk down the stairs. The lifts smelt of cleaning fluid, so were marginally better. Another good learning. Even though this would be the most convenient car park, we couldn't suggest that anyone park here.
Out in the fresh air, we started on our shortlist. One failed immediately because it turned out it doesn't open until 9.30, and we need to meet at about 8. We added the opening time to the criteria.
The second one, which was an ex-Wimpy bar, looked promising... the sort of place where you would expect a good honest cup of tea... but the tea arrived in a bag in a cup. It was definitely better than Cafe Nero, but it was still not good. We sipped our teas and discussed the demise of tea.
We realised that maybe we needed "tea in a pot", and that might be a better way to approach the task. Doing this would mean that we didn't need to restrict our list. We could walk in to any venue and ask if they served tea in pots, if they did we'd try it, if they didn't, we'd leave.
If they didn't open before 9, we didn't bother to ask anything. If they opened for breakfast, we went in, asked if they served tea in pots, and took it from there.
M&S used pots, and open at 8. We didn't bother trying the tea, we knew we at least had a fallback. We then tried the main streets, the connecting streets, the little alleys.... it was, from a teapot point of view, disheartening. It took forever.
Some of the places were very interesting and looked like they'd be good to visit for a meal, but not suitable for our purpose. After quite a long time, I peered down a dingy street whose name suggested it should have shops down it (but I couldn't see any).
We decided to walk down it because the street sort of led to the stinking car park. Half way down, we found a little tiny cafe. We stood outside. I didn't want to go in... if we chose this place, those people driving would park in that god awful car park, and what on earth would they think? They were coming from various parts of the country, I didn't want their dimpression of this big town to be that it was a complete sh*thole.
My brother said "I think I can see teapots". So we went in.
It was lovely. The food looked fabulous, the place was clean and welcoming, the service was great. The tea was in pots (and not typical catering pots), they open at 8. It was one teapot per person, and each pot held 3 cups of tea.
We had our winner.
I hope all is OK when we need it in a couple of weeks.
