I am on holiday! I am in Torquay and enjoying a lovely few days in the English Riviera. (Albeit with rather more grey drizzle and biting cold winds than the name “Riviera” might suggest.) Yesterday we went to the beautiful fishing town of Brixham and chanced upon Liberty Tea Parlour & Cocktail Bar. As you can imagine, any holiday I take involves a lot of stopping for tea, but Liberty was so delightful that I thought it deserved its own write-up.
Liberty offers 35 different varieties of tea. A quick count reveals that only nine of these are herbal & fruit nonsenses which means that there are twenty six honest-to-goodness Camelia Sinensis blends on offer here.
This, to a tea fancier like myself, seems like the correct number. Anything less and, quite frankly, you’re selling your customers short. One simply doesn’t always know if one is going to fancy some Tiger Leaping Green Tea, Rose Congou or a TGFOP Assam some days so it’s nice to have all the bases covered in one tea shop.
I went for a pot of Duchess Earl Grey which was a heady combination of black tea, orange and rose petals. It was absolutely delicious. Although, having consulted the tea menu again for the purposes of writing this review, I now want to go back and try at least a dozen of their other teas.
Liberty is a brilliantly conceived venue. Tea Parlour by day, Gin Palace by night, it’s both flamboyant and cosy with a nice touch of cheeky whimsy. (There’s a sign at the back of the shop which says “The Naughty Corner”.) If I lived in Brixham, I would probably go here on a daily basis.
Brixham is an interesting little town. It has a busy fishing industry and its port has inspired artists-in-residence since the 1960s. My boyfriend used to holiday here as a child so it was a nostalgia-laden visit for him. According to him, Brixham really hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. (Although the Pontin’s Holiday Camp is no longer there.)
You know when you go on holiday and then decide that you’re going to jack in your job, move there and start a completely new way of life? I had that in Brixham. There was an empty shop on the quayside. I have decided that I am going to buy it and turn it into the Tea Fancier Tea Shop. It’s going to be exactly like Liberty except it isn’t going to sell cocktails so it is going to be considerably less successful. I may not have entirely thought this business plan through, to be honest.
