Comins Tea Shop, Sturminster Newton, Devon
As I may have mentioned (several dozen times), I’ve recently been on holiday. The first half of our stay was spent at the Tregothnan Tea Estate in Cornwall, where I attended their Tea School Masterclass. The rest of the holiday was spent in Dorset, and was somewhat less tea-focused. But I still managed to fit in a bit of tea-fancying at the Comins Tea Shop in Sturminster Newton.
Comins is a family-run tea business who source fine-quality and unusual orthodox teas from around the world. I hadn’t tried any Comins tea before our visit, but I felt like I already knew its proprietors, Rob and Michelle Comins through their book Tales of the Tea Trade. This book is a wonderfully descriptive account of the couple’s tea travels and the fascinating and diverse people who produce the tea that they sell. (In embarrassing fangirl fashion, I took my copy of Tales of the Tea Trade with me, and Michelle very kindly signed it.)
Comins Tea Shop is a lovely little place, an oasis of calm in, well, admittedly an already very calm Dorset village.
We booked a table for 1.30 which I figured would be more than enough time before the shop shut at 3pm. As it was, it was way past closing time before we left. (The “we” here, by the way, is me and my boyfriend Andy. Andy is not a tea drinker, he has no interest in this stuff. I’m amazed we find anything to talk about really. He gamely kept me company during my tea travels, though. I saw him drink more tea during our holiday than in the whole five years I’ve known him.
We ordered Darjeeling First Flush Nurbong and Taiwanese Oriental Beauty Oolong. The Oolong was served Gongfu style in little terracotta teapot with a glass jug and almost thimble-sized terracotta bowl-like cups. Michelle was quick to point out that although the tea is served in Gongfu teaware, Comins tea shop do not provide a full Gongfu ceremony experience, which is a complicated culturally important affair that can only be performed by a true Gongfu master.
Taiwanese Oriental Beauty Oolong was a delicious tea with a sweet fruity flavour, which became more pronounced with each re-steeping. And there were a lot of re-steepings. Because the pot and tea cups were tiny. Much as I try to appreciate the slowed-down ceremony of drinking tea out of the appropriate Chinese teaware, I’m afraid that the heathen, uncultured tea drinker in me, just kind of wanted a great big mug of this fantastic oolong that I could slurp like an amateur.
First Flush Nurbong was thankfully served in normal-sized mugs and was a very different – and equally delicious – tea experience. Pale and delicate – yet rich and woody – this was a celebration of Darjeeling Kurseong South Hills in a tea cup. Every sip of it was a delight.
When I left Comins Tea Shop I declared that I was going to buy a house in Sturminster Newton just so I could go and drink tea in this tea shop every day. I remembered five minutes later that the Dorset Comins Tea Shop is only open on Saturdays, so this would be a stupid idea. (They have another tea shop in Bath which is open Tuesday to Saturday.)
This isn’t the end of my Comins tea journey. After I finished my pots of tea, I purchased a whole variety of loose leaf teas to bring home with me. I’m utterly powerless to resist that sort of temptation. In fact, I believe I should be commended for only purchasing eight new teas, and not all 74 types of tea on the menu.
I very much doubt I can recreate the magical meditative ambience of Comins Tea Shop at home, but I’ll give it my very best try.
