Civilised // Pitchshifter

Will decided that it was time for my long-awaited Yumchaa reveiw, and we went for lunch yesterday.

We headed to the new Camden shop which is completely unnoticable unless you know where you're going.
We had a look at the range of teas and tried to order. There was only one woman serving. It was lunch-time. In Camden. It took a while, to say the least. None of the food was labelled, so she had to run off what the sandwiches were, despite there not being much choice. I don't want to dwell on the sandwiches, as thats not really my interest, but they were toasted beyond belief. And took forever. Mine went in first and came out last. I had to swap with Jonny as my teeth wouldn't have coped.
Anyway, we eventually got our tea in nice white pots with accompanying strainers and we found a seat.


The actual shop is beautiful. It's all mismatched furniture and rustic looking cottagey kitchen tables, paisley wallpaper, brick walls and a beautiful light feature with hundreds of different lamps. There are lots of tables but still plenty of space to move around.
It aims for cosy, welcoming tea shop. It fails. It's got no actual atmosphere. It's too quiet. The cakes are displayed on a counter top in cheap baking trays.
It attracts trendy businessy type people, it's more laptop friendly than come and slump for half an hour and enjoy tea. It's more come and look like you care about tea while doing work.
I know that Yumchaa have quite a large student customer base. Well, I assume this as they have deals aimed at getting students in to work, which is very nice.. but.. it makes it feel more like Starbucks.
It's trendy. Aimed at yummy mummies and art students and metrosexual business men.
Which is fine. I have no problem with any of those stereotypes. I lie, clearly.
But anyway, it's just not for me. My ideal tea shop is sofas and books and friendly relaxed service.

Let's move on to the important part of a tea shop, the tea!
The whole business is based on bastardised tea. They have good policies, loose leaf, tea pot, fair trade, good quality, but then they take this fantastic tea and add stuff. Dried fruit, flowers, spices, caramel, nuts and chocolate.
And it's not even stuff that compliments or enhances the natural flavour of the tea. It drowns it out. I think it destroys it.
If you want to drink something that tastes like dried flowers then just take some dried flowers and add boiling water. Please? Don't bring good tea into it.


They do sell the lovely tea unbastardised, I will add. And I will happily drink this. They have the tea leaves in little cups for smelling when you order so you can make an informed decision on what tea to have.
If you're lucky they will make it clear that you don't have to have fruity flowery spicy nutty chocolatey tea, but this varies from shop to shop in my experience.

And now for the cakes. There were about seven varieties to choose from. I picked a brownie (always a good indicator), a slab or rich looking chocolate cake, and a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

The brownie was good, a lovely texture, a bit too nutty, but nowhere near chocolatey enough. Still the best of the three.
The chocolate cake was dry, only saved by the icing. Still, ok I guess. It was edible.
The lemon drizzle cake was stale. Old, dry and (I thought it was) flavourless. Like they'd forgotten to drizzle it and then left it out on the side for four days.

Oh and when I ordered the cakes I was handed them on a tray. I requested forks and was pointed to the table of what I assumed was take-away cutlery. How wrong I was. We had to use wooden forks. Apparently this is sustainable.
But it's not. Metal cutlery is reusable... fair enough wooden for takeaway. Metal for eat in please! I used my teaspoon in protest.
There was also a lack of sugarpots, I had to use a little plastic sachet which automatically ruined the illusion of class and atmosphere of the entire shop by leaving torn up bits of paper left on the table.


My friends think I am overly fussy for not loving yumchaa. And I know that it is mostly my snobbishness that prevents me from liking it. But I can't help that! I have standards and I will not be tricked into believing that I am consuming tea in the epitome of civilisation.
There are better places to go. Sorry.

I only feel the need to apologise for not liking it as a lot of my friends enjoy this place, and I am massively outnumbered. But meh. It's the truth.

Pictures to follow, J is away on business.