Review: Soho's Secret Tearoom

Do you ever find yourself in that situation where you discover something and wonder how you hadn't known about it before? That's what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when my friend M had a stopover in town on her way from Tokyo to Düsseldorf. I was wracking my brains trying to think of somewhere to take her when I decided to do a bit of Googling for inspiration. Narrowing my parameters to Soho, Covent Garden and Piccadilly (nobody wants to spend a stopover trekking around town) I saw a couple of references to Soho's Secret Tea Room. At first I ignored them not realising this was the actual name of the place and then I did a little bit more digging. Here, apparently, was an old-fashioned tearoom in a hidden room above one of Soho's most traditional pubs. Why had I not heard of it before? How long had it been there? Was it any good?

Review: Yumchaa, Soho

I'm never happier than when I'm having a good cup of tea, except perhaps when I'm having a good cup of tea with a good friend. One of my favourite spots to meet for an unpretentious afternoon tea is Yumchaa in Soho.

Review: Candy Café, Soho

What is that strange phenomenon when you hear about something for the first time and suddenly it seems to keep crop up everywhere? Well, that has been my experience this week with bubble tea. Until a week ago I had never even heard of this drink when I stumbled across a reference to it online. I did a little bit of research and discovered that it was a drink invented in Taiwan, apparently in the 80s, but now popular throughout South East Asia, the west coast of the USA, and Canada. It's a drink that seems to have countless variations. Some contain actual tea, green, oolong or black, some don't; some have milk or soy milk in, some don't; some have fruit or are purely fruit based, and some don't; etc. etc. But the one thing they have in common is tapioca. What?! I hear all you Brits saying, the disgusting stuff like frog spawn that we used to be force-fed at primary school? Well, no, not exactly. It is possible to get a bubble tea made with the small white pearl tapioca but the more common drink is made with large black tapioca pearls.

Smell Over Substance?

Why are most fruit and herbal teas so disappointing? They promise so much with their heady aromas and intense colours but when it comes to drinking them they are usually a big let down.