A Pub That Serves Only Tea Could Come To London Soon

Brew will serve tea during the day, and tea cocktails at night.

Brew is a pub for tea.

Brew

Brew aims to bring an "accessible tea-out experience" to London. Founder Alex Holland explains to BuzzFeed Life.

"One of the biggest barriers that there is for to people who like tea, and want somewhere nice to go out for it, is that the places to that currently exist to drink tea are too twee. Like hotel tea rooms with doilies, or cafés that are quite 'keep calm and carry on'.

"Those are fine, and that works well for some people, but there are people who resent the representation of tea as chintzy and twee."

The pub will "take the twee out of tea", Alex explains.

Brew

"The pub is a classic British institution and will treat tea as a serious drink. Like the way CAMRA treats their beer, we'll treat our tea that way, with respect."

Food entrepreneurs Giuseppe Mascoli (Founder, Franco Manca) and Iqbal Wahhab (Founder Roast/Cinnamon Club) are also on board with the project.

The idea ~brewed~ when Alex couldn't find a good cup of tea in London.

Flickr: blondinrikard / Via Creative Commons

"I was sitting in this old school caff in Brixton, which is where I’m from, and I was holding a white mug of strong black tea, and this tea was tasting so much better. That not only the other tea in Brixton, but the other tea anywhere. And why was that? It was because it was loose leaf tea.

"This caff had been going since the 1930s, and they’d never used tea bags. It really hit me. Britain is a nation defined by tea drinking and we accept the worst possible quality of tea, and this humble greasy spoon got it right. Why is it easy to got a good pot of loose-leaf tea in Paris, but not in London? I thought, this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to convert people to loose leaf tea and restore prestige to our national drink."

The pub will serve foods that match with all kinds of tea.

Brew

"We will provide foods that can be matched to the flavours of different teas", Alex continues.

"The creamy cakes that hotel tea rooms serve tend to only go with one type of tea. We'll provide a wider variety of lighter, less milky cakes like orange and polenta cake for example. Another example is that cheeses pair really well with certain teas like Oolongs and we'll offer people the opportunity to do that with a savoury as well as sweet Tea in the Afternoon service. We'll also serve substantial sourdough from BreadBread bakery and top quality porridge, hearty salads and sandwiches and charcuterie and cheeses in the evening. "

In the evening, the pub will serve tea cocktails, like these English Breakfast Martinis.

Brew

Brew will work directly with small tea growers in India.

Brew

"Loose leaf tea has more flavour than bagged tea. This improved flavour also allows us to charge a better price, which we can use to pay the growers with dignity", Alex says.

"With the sourcing for Brew, we’ve sourced from growers like Pallabjyoti Nath (above) who is a small grower in Assam. He grows and processes his own leaves, and doesn’t sell them to the teabag factory. By doing that, he can keep the process of what he sells. And every pot of tea we sell will help people like him and the growers. The profit goes back to the community."

Brew is also offering work experience and job opportunities to ex-offenders, with Switchback.

There's been a great response to the project already.

#teaclub @hashtagteaclub

Is this real? Holy **** @brewteapub. God has answered the call!

06:13 PM - 16 Jun 2015

Brew raised 65% of their crowdfunding target in two weeks.

"We could have raised the rest of the money through private finance, but this project is about helping people take pride in tea. By putting the word out there through crowdfunding, we found the right people who want to come to Brew, so they've got the opportunity to own part of Brew and to be evangelical", Alex adds.

As for the future?

Brew

"We'd love to scale across the country and beyond. We want everybody up and down the country to be able to take pride in tea."

If you'd like to crowdfund Brew, click here.

You can also follow Brew on twitter - @brewteapub