Just my cup of tea

Time for tea at L'Epicerie, Chatsworth Road E5

IT was around 6am one Sunday morning in 1999. A thrilling adrenaline panic propelled us along the wooded, twisty bends of Abney Park Cemetery, three snarling Alsatian dogs and a menacing looking bloke in breakneck pursuit.

We weren’t supposed to be in the park at that time, so the menacing bloke must have been the park keeper (does Abney Park even have a keeper? Who was that?)

As Cerberus’ jaw snapped empty, we scaled those huge iron gates and leapt from Hades to the safety of Stoke Newington High Street.

In need of a cup of hot tea to round off our post-party graveyard horror chase, we descended upon Leo’s café.  A parting shot from the underworld sprang from Leo’s diabolical brew – we all agreed the tea tasted like rotten cabbage.  True, at around 40p a cup it had been on the cheap side, but was that the best that Hackney could offer its ghost busting heroes?

Today the Hackney Citizen has asked me to scour the borough for an affordable cup of tea.  Haunted by past experience, I know cheapness can come at a cost.  So I’m on a quest for value for money.

I start close to home, the Royal Bakery on Stoke Newington High Street.  I order, and a grumpy-looking woman shoves a mug of milky hot water and teabag onto the table in front of me (I didn’t even ask for milk).

It’s 80p to sit in, 60p to take-away.  I hate milky tea, so I sip until there’s enough room for more hot water to leach away at the teabag, and ask the woman to top up my cup, which she does.  The place is clean but bleak.  I enjoy a tasty but costly (40p) biscotto before bracing myself for the cold march towards Hoxton.

On Stoke Newington Road I find a safe cubby hole at Leo’s Workman’s Café. A selection of Twinings flavours is on offer, and I am asked by a beaming manager whether I would like milk (hurrah!).

For 50p I get a mug of hot water with teabag, and a separate jug of milk to pour to taste. A mish-mash of people are sitting enjoying their mugs and fry-ups, and I’m feeling very comfortable.  It’s hard to tear myself away and hit the cold streets again.

At the Enjoy Café on Kingsland High Street, I notice the place is full of punters, a number of them pensioners.  This, I think, must be the place for a cheap cuppa.

But when I walk in, the atmosphere is just so depressing I can’t bring myself to stay.  I ask the manager how much a cup of tea costs.  He looks at me suspiciously and mutters “fifty pence”.  I make a quick exit, and instantly regain the will to live.

I am drawn by the uplifting sight of Ochre Works (a café bar under the Vortex) in Gillett Square, where a cup of tea costs £1.30. But in spite of the toasty warmth, friendly waiting staff, and comfy looking sofas, I am not persuaded to stay.  The loud CDs and smell of yesterday’s roast chicken repel me back to the streets.

Back on Kingsland High Street Troy Café Bistro has an interesting look about it. I help myself to one of the newspapers, and wait for the smiling waitress to bring me a big cup of hot water with tea bag, and a jug of milk (I didn’t even have to ask!). The wall opposite is covered in photos of oiled muscular male torsos.  Very gay.

Except this does not feel in the least bit like a gay venue.  And what’s more, in spite of its name, this café is supposed to be Italian.  A serious case of identity crisis. I pay £1.20 and leave.

I pop into the Geffrye Museum Café, a lovely glass conservatory eminently conducive to tea drinking.  The pleasant manageress brings me a pot of Twinings (tea bag) tea from which I can get a cup-and-a-half, and jug of milk, at a cost of £1.40.

We chat about Russia (which is where she’s from), politics, and fair-trade teabags (which she doesn’t stock because she feels they’re of inferior quality).  I drink up and reluctantly leave this aesthetic oasis to brave the elements.

The Old Shoreditch Station Pub is inviting.  It’s warm, and hip-scruffy, and the waitresses are really friendly.  I sip my £1.50 cup of Twinings (milk comes separately) and watch a bunch of 20-30-somethings tap away on their laptops.  I feel so comfy that I’m pining for a fag.  But I gave up three years ago and need to leave this place before I have a relapse.

Traversing the neighbourhood,  I notice that McDonald’s on Mare Street do a small tea for 89p and a large cup for 99p.  At Clapton Road I drop into Yum Yum Caribbean Cuisine where I get another milk-steeped teabag, this time served in a paper cup with plastic spoon (not very eco-conscious).

I am tempted by the curry goat, but after a full-bladdered visit to the unsavoury basement toilet I don’t want to hang around.  I pay my £1 and leave.

At Dilaria’s on Morning Lane I am served a tea-bag-less (i.e. it’s been sitting in a vat all day) mug of milky tea.  It’s stewed.  Oddly, this doesn’t seem to matter.  This is a proper caff, full of punters chatting happily away.

I pay my 50p, and, as I’m leaving, the waitress, with enormous cheer, is shouting ‘thank-you!” and waving goodbye. I head home in good spirits.

Back in Stoke Newington, and I’m sitting in Leo’s for the first time in nine years. The nice waitress, who keeps calling me “honey”, pours from a ready-made vat and like the many others before her, chucks in too much milk. The stark Wimpy bar décor and smell of vinegar could portend malignant offerings.

I glance out the window towards Abney Park Cemetery and wonder which baleful entity might infect my tea with cabbages.  But one cautious sip and the ghosts of 1999 are exorcised.  This cuppa’s not that bad. True, I’d rather pay £1.50 to sit in the cosy nostalgia of hip-scruffy whilst pining for a fag down Shoreditch way.   But at 50p a go, this cuppa is probably what you’d call value for money, “honey”.