Earl & Lady Grey's Teahouses of the World

After my plea for contributions yesterday, I was contacted by Earl & Lady Grey (Of the refreshing citrus infused tea fame). They have agreed to contribute a new feature to my blog, in which they will be reviewing tea rooms from around the world. I may even have to submit a few reviews myeslf (Can't let them have all the fun). Hope you enjoy sampling these tea shops.

Introduction

While Lady Grey and I were on Honeymoon recently we popped into a couple of Tea Rooms for a cup of tea and a bit of something nice. While enjoying ourselves we felt that other connoisseurs of tea such as ourselves might be interested to know about the quality of the tearooms we were in. Therefore we have written the following short reviews.

Rectory Farm & Tea Rooms, Morwenstow, Cornwall

Quality of Tea -
A Bit of Something Nice -
General Ambiance -
Service -
Value for Money -

What can we say about the Rectory Farm and Tea Room except that if you are in the area you have to visit this Tea Emporium. The setting itself is stunning. You can sit either inside in the beautiful parlour or outside in the beautiful garden with views out towards the sea. The tea is top quality. It doesn't get better than this. For a bit of something nice I had a traditional cornish pasty followed by a cream tea. Lady Grey had a bowl of apple and parsnip soup followed by a cream tea. Everything is made on the premises and mostly from local ingredients. The pasty was as good as anticipated and the soup was gorgeous and exceeded all expectations. The cream teas were just divine. Two huge scones and homemade jam with thick clotted cream. Mmmmm.

If I absolutely had to find a criticism at all it would be that it is not hugely cheap. A pot of tea for one and a cream tea is £5.95. However, the overall quality of the experience is so good that we still felt we were getting value for money so we haven't marked this down. As I said above, if you're anywhere near here you really should visit it. We couldn't fault it.

Website: http://www.rectory-tearooms.co.uk

Earl Grey

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Cottage Tea Rooms, Clovelly, North Devon

Quality of Tea -
A Bit of Something Nice -
General Ambiance -
Service -
Value for Money -

Clovelly was the home of Charles Kingsley, author of the Water Babies and is an amazing place stuck in a time warp. Cobbled streets lead down a very steep hill to the historic harbour. The Cottage Tea Rooms are about two-thirds of the way down the hill on the right hand side.

When you enter the tiny parlour you have to queue up to order and pay before sitting down and waiting for your order. The service was slow and we had to wait five minutes for someone to come and take our order. This was despite the fact that it didn't seem to be hugely busy. I had a pot of tea and a cream tea which came in at £3.95 while Lady Grey had a 'Gentleman's Delightful Tea'. This consisted of a salmon and cucumber sandwich and a cream tea with one scone (my cream tea had two scones). This was £4.95.

The food was delicious although the scones were on the small side. However, the Cottage Tea Rooms was let down badly by the standard of it's tea. The tea was simply not very good. As this should be the strong point of any tearooms we were left feeling disappointed by the experience. We would recommend the food but improvements could be made in service and the quality of its tea.

Earl Grey

Tags: Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Tea Houses, Review