According to Southend’s Adults Information Point (SHIP) website “We (ATTIC) serve delicious, fresh, locally sourced and produced food in a welcoming atmosphere on the beautiful Thames estuary in Southend-on-Sea. We are open every day from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. We have plenty of room inside for access for wheelchair users and buggies, and seats at tables and comfy sofas.  There is outside seating too, to enjoy the sunshine and our beautiful location. Come in for breakfast, lunch, a light snack or out homemade cakes and famous hot chocolate. We also have a license to sell alcohol, and get in touch if you would like to hire out the venue for a private function” (see also ATTIC’s Facebook page).

I feel a bit self conscious posting about a new eating / drinking discovery twice in two days but I hope I can be excused because it was an opportunity for we as a family to go out together and it happened one member pointed out there was this tea shop that we might like to try out. It was a new discovery worth mentioning. So at the end of our excursion after a car ride along the sea front we ended up outside the afore-mention tea establishment, just past Southend’s Sea Life centre. And we were not disappointed.

I decided to order an English breakfast tea (and was impressed it was in big pot that allowed for several dainty cups of delicious tasting tea), my wife a Jasmine type tea and the tea connoisseur in our family a milk shake, with a pannini and carrot cake thrown in, and all for just over a tenner. We enjoyed the cosy atmosphere and there were others there that seemed much at home. Everything was perfect and it was clear the attentive staff were enthusiastic about their teas, community ethos (including providing work / training opportunities for folk with learning disabilities), freshness of their products, healthy living emphasis while not sacrificing taste, and the range of services like hosting functions that were on offer.

It was another great decision to come and this was a place that had a special unique touch, that for me had that quiet and genteel feel, where I would be pressed to point out its equivalent in the town. It is another establishment that goes down in my need to return to again book and may well in future compete with my default coffee house as the place to go for meeting folk to discuss community stuff. But I did reassure Mrs B that I would not trade her for all the tea in China.