Vicky tells us the Tea Hive story…
Having started our cake business selling cakes, jams and preserves at markets around Manchester we were always eager to open a tea room which specialised in fines tea and beautiful coffee. We’ve been growing our business for the past two years; originally coming together thought a passion for cooking and creating baked delights for our friends, thought selling mince pies in thick snow last winter and supplying to local businesses. Our research into the perfect tea room took us as far as Luxemburg, Prague and Amsterdam and to all corners of these tea loving Isles which we came back from full of ideas and inspiration for a coffee and tea room full of Gezelligheid – which were told is translated to mean “convivial, cosy, fun, quaint, or nice atmosphere, but can also mean belonging, spending time with loved ones, seeing a friend after a long absence, or general togetherness”. Opening a coffee and tea room has been our dream for a long time and we we’re incredible excited to be able to do this in Chorlton in October 2011, in our opinion the perfect location with a very welcoming local community, Tea Hive felt established in a very short space of time.
At Tea Hive we serve a wide range of loose leaf teas and artisan coffee blends to compliment our handcrafted traditional cakes in elegant, relaxed surroundings. We work with an independent artisan tea and coffee supplier to ensure all our drinks are of the highest quality and dynamic in range. We also serve a bespoke breakfast and lunch menu with an ever changing range of specials to reflex seasonal produce, complemented by our preserves, chutneys and relishes which are all homemade. We ensure we always have vegan and wheat free savoury and sweet options and it’s often the wheat free cakes which sell our first! Our speciality is traditional afternoon tea with delightful finger sandwiches, a selection from our daily cake range and freshly baked scones served with clotted cream and homemade jam. As all our baking is done on the premises we can make sure than only the finest and freshest cakes are served and we enjoy nothing more than creating delightful new cakes and producing high quality traditional ones.
Tea and coffee are our passion and as such we have hand-selected a range of loose leaf teas and regular coffee blends, lovingly created by J Atkinson of Lancaster, the award winning artisan tea blender and coffee roaster. Our teas range from firm favourites such as Earl Grey scented with bergamot, through to our smoky black tea, Russian Caravan, to more unusual red, green and white teas which mystically uncurl in the pot revealing a world of scents and flavours. As we constantly tweak our selection our customers are sure to find the perfect cuppa, served in traditional vintage mismatching china.
We train our barristers to create smooth and luxurious coffees, using a range of brewing methods and blends of beans. A passion for coffee can become an obsession and we’ve defiantly developed a coffee community with our staff and regulars, bringing new ideas from around the world and trying new ways to serve and brew coffee. We work to find passionate coffee roasters who know their products inside out and use their beans as guest coffee range.
In addition to baking we gather our seasonally changing range of preserves in beautiful hampers which proved a hit at last year’s Manchester Christmas Markets. These preserves are on sale all year round and often feature in our sandwiches and cakes. Many of the ingredients for these are sourced from local growers or donated from friends and families allotment and garden surpluses. We also run craft evenings and hire our beautiful tea room out for private functions and events.
We know that there is nothing better than homemade cake and we’re happy to do the making for you. We offer a take away service for all our cakes which can be tailored to suit any occasion including a vegan and gluten free range. We have also just extended this range to include catering for afternoon tea at events and we can even supply you with the vintage crockery to match.