The Hitchhiker’s guide to Hereford’s tea-serving institutions
Introduction
The following reviews, like any literary creation, have a target audience. This is not a disclaimer, but rather a reminder that when We sat in these tearooms, cafés, restaurants and hotels, We were looking for a certain something, and, indirectly, on behalf of a certain type of people. Our taste is reflected in the eight review categories, which are listed in descending order of importance (apart from overall, obviously), and perhaps deserve some explanation. They are:
1 atmosphere
2 the food & drink
3 price
4 hospitality
5 reading potential
6 clientele
7 location
8 busy-ness
9 professionalism
and 10 overall
These are largely self-explanatory, and pretty much inextricably linked. Thus the atmosphere is greatly influenced by the hospitality and and clientele, und so weiter.
Hospitality is basically the friendliness of the staff – everyone has been to a café where a gorgeous blonde siren presides, cold and aloof, fully aware of the wicked power she wields. And equally well known the institution hostessed by a jolly fat woman booming ‘love’ and ‘my darling’ here and there. I hope I am being neither too stereotypical nor too sexist.
Now the reading potential is very important – if you are by yourself it is perhaps the most important, although again it is massively inlfuenced by its peers. For when one has hours to while away in Hereford (or anywhere), or one just wants to relax, a book and a café are needed. reading potential is largely judged according to atmosphere, hospitality, busy-ness, and perhaps clientele. busy-ness is perhaps the most important of these – a small side-alley hole is often a better reading place simply because you don’t have (gorgeous blonde) robot waitresses glaring at you for having taken up a table for two hours during the lunch period reading ‘How to score with Sirens’. And of course you’d rather not have to sit on a chair the texture of tarmac, nor have to suffer the little children, etc.
That about covers it. As far as professionalism is concerned, this is more about not getting orders wrong and not dropping things on the customers than about having that sprig of parsley just so.
So, for each institution We review, apart from a few paragraphs of undulating prose, We shall give the place a mark from 1 to 5 stars, 5 being ‘yes, I like what you’ve done here; I see what you’ve done here’, to 1: ‘Great Scott, Marty, this is terrible!’.
What did you say your name was again? I didn’t. Let me be known as Tea-drinker 1, and my colleague as Tea-drinker 2.
Teadrinker1
Teadrinker2
We visit these places together, sample their delights, and agree on what is generally to be said. We will probably write the reviews alternately, but rest assured that if over time it seems one mind is writing, it is not that We have become boringly narrow-minded, like Earl Grey drinkers (a jihad on them, my friends), but rather that one of us has assassinated the other and become Shogun of all Hereford. Maybe we will reveal more of ourselves in time. But I digress - on to the reviews!
8 The Flying Kettle: an obituary
9 North Point café, St Andrews
10 The Brasserie Café, London Bridge, by "Guest Star" Tea Drinker
STOP PRESS: Special Announcements
The future may, but probably won't, reveal news of:
The Blue Note, Elgars, The Coffee Bean, The Green Dragon, Church St Rendezvous, Matabeau, The Marches, Cloister Café, the Regency, The Antique Tearooms, possibly that place by the bus station, Next Door at Doodies - if they're still open, and City Snax.
Write to me at: teadrinkerone@hotmail.com