London tea/coffee haunts- Getting the best (value) tea/coffee in London – but not from where you always expect: A journey that continues
// January 23rd, 2010 // Bachelor's guide to cooking without Shan
Obvious suspects like whittards provide awful, undrinkable ‘tea’ (i mean, yogurt flavoured berry tea? honestly…). To find some of the good stuff, one needs to be a little more imaginative:
Last weekend whilst prowling around picadilly for no apprent reason i decided it was time to bow to my weaknesses and pop into the new japan center supermarket – which is, incidentally a vast improvement on the previous (2 iterations) of the same institution.
I always seem to need reminding that you can generally get some great (and good value) tea at places you dont normally think of as destination for tea. japan center is a case in point – they have a pretty decent collection of japanese teas. Sencha, matcha (they also grind fresh matcha on the premises) which is much more reasonably than jing tea – my usual tea supplier (in their defence they largely seem to concentrate on chinese teas). Not everybody likes the somewhat unaani japanese teas, but if its up your alley then the japan center is a great place to visit.
I got myself the sencha linked below and i;m pretty happy with it – its run out alarmingly fast. also got some fuji matcha, but was slightly less impressed, i like matcha to be vibrant and peppy, and this one just felt a bit ‘tired’ on the tongue.
Also interesting is japanese barley tea (supermarkets in japan have a dazzling array of strange variations on tea), which is, oddly somewhat similar to a traditional punjabi barely drink they make in villages outside lahore. in any case, its the perfect accompaniment to those distant hot summer days.
Update:
The other day i visited this place: http://www.coffee.uk.com/ aka Coffee Plant of Notting Hill, London. They appear to be some sort of wholesaler / coffee shop in notting hill. So far, i’ve only tried their bolivian arabica light(ish) roast, which was interesting because the bean (when you have it on its own) is actually pretty mild, but the stuff that comes out of your espresso machine is pretty nippy. unfortunately i managed to burn my maiden brew, ill the remaining coffee and report back.
The shop itself was interesting, ever so slightly grimy (ALWAYS a good thing, especially if you have the twinkle of bargain hunting in your eye) and, i though, pretty good value – considering my (organic, as it turned out to be – for what its worth) bolivian coffee freshly ground for me was £12 a kilo. Thats the sort of price you would get a packet of lavazza espresso (might even be some robusto, because unlike illy lavazza do actually use robusto in addition to arabica only blends -bah!) for at a supermarket.
next stop – i want to check out this place:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/apr/01/foodanddrink.restaurants
Uji no Tsuyu Green Tea Gold (Sencha Kin) 100g
via Japanese food | Japan Centre: Tea (loose).
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