REVIEW: EAT! Festival – TeaShed’s Tea On The Lawn

By Grace Cook on July 27, 2012 in Food

There is no nicer way to spend an afternoon than partaking in the activity that is afternoon tea, and The *TeaShed’s pop-up Tea on the Lawn, as part of the annual EAT! festival, was no exception to this.

Hosted by Blackfriars restaurant, the pop-up tea party took place in the beautiful cloister garden on what was a perfect summer’s day. Picnic tables were covered in white tablecloths and decorated with vases of sunflowers and picnic blankets and scatter cushions were spread on the lawn. The trees were adorned with bunting and huge lanterns, giving it a real Alice in Wonderland feel and it was definitely al fresco dining at its best.

Scones, jam, tea and vintage china are among the great loves in my life (I’m an old lady at heart) and Blackfriars did not disappoint with its afternoon tea menu. Beef and mustard sandwiches on homemade bread accompanied scones with a strange jam that tasted a lot like a festive mince pie (I later found out this unusual flavour was fig), and I sampled what was possibly the best lemon polenta cake ever created. All served, of course, on individual pieces from vintage tea sets.

The real treat though was sampling some of the many flavours of tea The *TeaShed offers. Recently returning from a stint at T in the Park, selling its brews to hungover T-goers, The *TeaShed made me deviate from my traditional/boring tipple of English Breakfast tea, and I was treated to new flavours passion fruit and summer berry, which tasted a lot like the hot juice I used to drink as a sickly child (i.e. they were lush).

The *TeaShed will definitely be my place-to-go to stock up on quirky teas from now on. So thanks to Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, for being such a hungry bitch and creating the notion of afternoon tea back in the day, and thanks to Blackfriars and The *TeaShed for what was a really lovely afternoon. Please host another party again soon!