Lord Devotea's Tea Spouts

Category: Service

  • Don’t Wait To Be Told

    There was a classic series of TV ads in the 1970s in Australia, complete with jingle. It consisted of various scenarious where someone is enjoying themselves, only to be told that they suffer from offensive body odour. The solution? Palmolive Gold, a soap with built-in deodorant. The basic premise was that if you suffer from…

  • No Shame, but Plenty of Blame

    I know from the evidence of my own 1.8 eyes (one’s not very good) that people often order coffee at the end of a meal. Most people do not eat out every day. Sure, some people might buy the same plastic burger everyday for lunch or start each day with an oil-soaked hash brown served at somewhere between the boiling point of titanium and the temperature of a…

  • Unexpected Delights

    It was one of those moments. We were in Peterborough. It’s an odd town. Not far enough north to be a Northern English town; too far north to be a southern one. Too far east to be the Midlands, perilously close to being too far west to be East Anglia. A town that has fluctuated…

  • First you heat the water…

    Bath. It’s all about water. Called Aquae Sulis by The Romans, the centrepiece of the town of Bath is a massive Roman Bath complex, with columns and statues, All very impressive. All Victorian. Yes, in 1897, on top of the old, genuine remains, some well-meaning individuals basically rebuilt a fake that, with more than a…

  • In Memory of the Tea Smugglers

    Let me handle your first objection, dear reader. I have heard that tea smugglers of the 1700s are no different to drug smugglers today; and if that is your opinion, dear reader, then you are entitled to it; as completely wrong as it is. Tea was not illegal; merely highly taxed. Smuggling tea was not…

  • The Good, The Bad and the Rest

    One trip to France, one minor health crisis and 10 days with very limited internet access ago, we finished  24 hectic days in London. I  blogged about more than a dozen tea experiences. Here, in compendium form, are the rest! These are not in order, chronologically or quality-wise. Brown’s Hotel Afternoon Tea. The same price as The Dorchester, and on a par.…

  • The Confluence of Limited Tea

    After leaving the Dorchester, for more than 72 hours I had limited tea. It is the confluence of limited opportunity and circumstance and limited tea supplies. In an attempt to walk off some of the repast after The Dorchester, we walked across Hyde Park. Then through some of Kensington. In fact we walked for about three hours. Add that to the three hours walking…

  • Worth One Thousand Words

    Even though I had a fabulous weekend, the fact that I had no tea other than what I made myself means I can assume that is of little interest to my readers. So I will summarize it in one sentence and then neatly catch up with my blog by describing yesterday. Here’s the sentence: Our…

  • Living Tea to Tea

    We arrived here in London two days earlier than previously planned, and stayed those days in a tiny hotel room in Southwark. Turns out we like Southwark. Day one Lady Devotea was not overly well, and after we had settled in, I went in search of a chemist to procure some cold remedies. I also had on my agenda sorting out…

  • Context and the Art of Slurping Your Own Tea

    Drinking your own tea? When I worked at a computer store many years ago, a lovely lady there named Janet had a saying, that someone had been “drinking their own bathwater”. Using this phrase to mean someone who was “a little different” had been drinking their own bathwater. And by ‘a little different” I mean touched. And by ‘touched’ I…