MR KITLY Tea Room

MR KITLY opened a temporary Tea Room in December 2012 in one of the rooms of our Victorian-era shop space. 

It opened weekends in December 2012 11am-4pm, and featured all vegan menu, pour over coffee from Market Lane and all handmade tableware by Mr Kitly artists. 

Tea is integral to my day, and here I refer to my favourite advocate of the humble beverage, Dr Samuel Johnson, who described himself as:

“a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.”

The Tea Room was imagined as a peaceful place (hence the choice for those who can't go without their daily coffee of pourover coffee rather than the faster paced and noise of espresso) where customers were welcome to sit a while, read the magazines, enjoy the sunbeams, and chat with friends. Tea I think need not be elevated to a science, its power for me lies in the everyday, and the solace and slowing down that comes with putting the kettle on to boil, and pouring a cuppa. It is not without reason that there is a tradition of when things are going wrong as life sometimes does, many people's first reaction is to offer a cup of tea.

Or as Ray Davies of The Kinks put it, For Christ Sake Have a Cuppa Tea.