Inside Wanstead’s new teashop, Time for Tea

Suki Orange, Wansteadium’s food blogger, writes:

Wanstead’s new tea shop, Time for Tea, which opened last month opposite Snaresbrook Station (next door to Tiffin Tin) seems like a jolly fine thing. Starting with a bit of a sow’s ear of a building, they have made something silky and actually quite cool.

As you’ll see from the photos, it’s clean, chic, slightly tongue-in-cheek,  but without designer prices. Tea brewed in proper pots, (coffee too if you want it) plus a pretty wide choice of home-made cakes. They look good, too, and though I approve on principle of all baked goods, a Rocky Road bar I tasted could have done with a touch more biscuit and chewy stuff, rather fewer peanuts.

Tracy and Dave, the Woodford couple who have done the renovations and are doing the baking and hosting have  also spotted an opening in the lunchtime market for Wanstead – simple inexpensive sandwich lunches. I wondered, in the days before it opened, and with its proximity to Snaresbrook Crown Court, whether it would appeal more to lawyer or defendant. It’s clearly more the former, but they will be outnumbered by Wanstead mums.  It’s good too that they are active tweeters – @TimeFor_Tea – from which we learn that their first celeb customer was Una Stubbs.

So for all the wishful thinking we sometimes engage in here about the potential for Wanstead, here is an example of something really rather good actually happening. Do go along and see for yourself – I’d be interested in knowing what you think. Let me know on this page at Wanstead Talk. 

PS. I do have one quibble about how the shop is dressed. There are copious copies of Country Life, which work much better as a prop than as something to entertain the customers. I think I can probably pull some strings if Tracy and Dave want to widen their appeal and become the third venue for the magazine-sharing collective, the Wanstead Magazine Club.