The shop catches your eye even when you apporach, simply because it is so small. Wedged into two tall buildings, it looks completely out of place. Stepping inside, the smell of tea wafts right at you, fragrant and fresh.
The best part for the serious tea shopper is that Twinings has made this a tea emporium in every sense of the word. You can find any kind of Twinings tea from the old classics to the newest range stocked in the shelves. Twinings' own store compared to your regular supermarket is even greater since the tea cheaper here. The regular range is available at around £1,50 and the newest varieties including the "Sensation" brews at £2.
My personal highlight were the little smelling glasses, that are placed with each tea: they contain the corresponding tea bags so you can get a smell and an impression of what the tea is like. This is not only a greatly helpful feature which you will undoubtedly miss in any super market, but also highly addictive, since the smells are simply sooooo good! Just like a visit to the perfume shop, you will find your nose unable to smell after you have inhaled your 5th (or was it the 10th?) wiff of tea. I must have looked like a serious addict to the assistants, since I sniffed at almost every tea in the store - an estimated 200 flavours.
Apart from the smelling bit, another great feature is the pick 'n' mix section, where you can chose single teabags out of a variety of ca. 30 teas. The minimum purchase is 10 teabags at £ 1,50. I was a little disappointed, since I misunderstood the information on the website and imagined a much larger choice - which is probably all for the best or I might have run home with 40 loose tea bags. Even with the "small range" I still managed to find a number of new teas to try including the new christmassy Mulled Spice Edition, the rose tea and the chai (which I will be trying in a minute).
For the visual people amongst us the shop is simply a sensational sight. The former coffe house was bought by Thomas Twining in 1706 and the decoration of that time has remained. The tea shelves are made of traditional dark wood, with portraits of possibly important people from the 18th century hanging above them and all the furniture in the store is from that same period. For this historical flair alone the shop if worth a tourist visit, even if you don't want to buy tea (which in the end you probably will). And when you have bought the tea, you didn't intend to buy, you can take it away in one of the stylish Twinings paper bags with the current advertising design.
Those who prefer to taste rather than look will be instantly drawn into the tea tasting counter, where a knowledgable assistant poors different teas for you to try while expertly explaining all there is to know about first and second flushes of Assam tea and the like.
If it is not tea you are after but anything tea related such as coffee, hot chocolate, tea pots and mugs, elegant compartment boxes for the pick 'n' mix - you can find it all here.
This place is a must for Twinings tea nuts, design dorks, tourists and Londoners, and even for royalists (there is a jubilee tea and pot). Whoever you are, I am sure there is something here that will grab your fancy!
And after your visit you can go on to the Twinings website to learn more about the tea you bought, get some great recipes for iced teas or order even more tea!
Tealicious!
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