I decided to visit a tea garden in the heart of Rivonia this weekend. It’s a cute restaurant with lots of leafy shrubs and flowering plants around the sidewalk tables.
It was a bit chilly so I decided to have breakfast indoors. Apart from feeling warm and cosy, I was very impressed with the unique look of the restaurant. It had some drawings on one side of the wall, a little bookshelf against another wall, pictures on yet another side and framed mirrors too. All of this décor still blended in well and managed to give the patrons a relaxed vibe.
I am not too much of a tea drinker so I was very surprised to see so many different types of teas for sale behind the counter. There’s loose tea leaves and tea bags that you can buy from different brands and in differing packages. It created a really authentic feel to the store and the waitresses would open the jars on these shelves to scoop out some tea leaves, as per the customers’ orders, to make a brew.
Since I was in a tea shop, I decided to pick a tea with loose tea leaves – Coconut Snow. The tea was served in a rather cute see-through plastic “pot”. It’s easy to see where the tea leaves go as well as the interesting colours of the different teas. Coconut snow had a subtle coconut taste to it whilst still looking like tea. The tea was kept warm throughout my meal.
I also tasted the English Breakfast brew and I must say that Contessa’s house brand is the best English Breakfast tea that I’ve ever tasted.
To accompany the teas, there were tables of mouth-watering cakes but I needed something a bit more substantial for breakfast. The only vegetarian option was Breakfast Toast which comprised of toasted rye topped with mushrooms, slices of avocado and tomato, melty cheese topped with rocket. Despite having a very healthy look to it, it was delicious! At some point I dissected each topping to eat separately to find out what made every full bite so tasty, and I realised that it was just the combination of all the ingredients that made it taste good. Next time, I might see if I can swop out the rye for white bread as I find toasted rye a bit hard. All in all, a very tasty light breakfast to start off my day.
The restaurant is not big enough for me to bring all my girlfriends in for a proper high tea but it’s definitely perfect to go for a cosy little breakfast again….and to maybe stock up on some of that Coconut Snow.
Have you dined at Contessa Tea Connoisseur recently? What has been your experience?