Tea of the week: High Tea of Highgate

Hello readers of Tea for Joy! Lynne has kindly asked me to write a guest blog today so I am very happy!

My name's Helen from over at Manilla Made, my design blog for all things ethical, handmade, recycled, all things bright and colourful!!

On Saturday I ventured out in the cold with a friend, to someplace far away – they call it North London! And the beautiful Village of Highgate! Have you been? It’s so pretty!

From Hampshire we navigated the train to Waterloo and then the Northern line to visit a tea shop by the name of High Tea of Highgate. We went to drink tea and eat scones and jam but also to visit a very good friend of mine, Niki Groom who is exhibiting her beautiful illustrations in this cute little teashop.

Highgate Village is, in my opinion one of those perfect London high streets that should be forever preserved in time! With its independent butchers, greengrocers, cafes and gift shops it offers something so different from the big chains and superstores....personality! I really hope more is done to save these independent town centres and village high streets so that Britain does not become a nation of “clone towns,” where major chains dominate.

Because Saturday was International Buy Nothing Day and I had blogged about it the day before here, I persuaded my friend to buy me coffee! - Coffee, I hear you cry…in a tea shop! In my defence if I don’t drink coffee before a certain time in the day I start to get awful headaches and was already suffering!! My friend enjoyed a pot of Earl Grey and Niki a nice herbal variety.

We sat and we ate and we drank and we cooed over what is the most beautiful little teashop in all the world! With homemade cakes to tempt you, beautiful crockery that you can also buy and lots of fabulous things to look at it has become my new favourite place!





Niki’s illustrations sat so well in the surroundings they looked really lovely. I also loved the wall illustrations by Charlotte Hardy and the crockery that my coffee came in (see there was another reason why I had coffee!) by Branksome China, who hand make everything in their little factory in Hampshire!

I also loved the tea cup chandelier, which I am sure is by the artist Madeleine Boulesteix who I featured on my blog back in March.

I will leave you now but I do hope to see you soon. Please stop by my blog where you are very welcome. There is also a little interview with Niki where she has let us into her secrets as an illustrator!

Bye for now xxx