Our Shop

On the 18th November 2006, our first tea house opened in the centre of Cambridge, just off Market Square, on a little street called Peas Hill.

It's an opportunity for us to bring our message to the good people of Cambridge, in particular to invite them to try something new and somewhat more inspirational than their usual supermarket tea bags. And we're pleased to say that since opening we've been daily converting people of all walks of life back to loose leaf tea.

What's all the fuss about?

There has in recent years been a trend towards ever more faceless coffee shops all selling broadly the same thing at broadly the same, fairly high, price. Yet our culture is rooted in tea, both traditionally and in the modern home, where as a nation we drink teabags of very poor quality. It is not often through any conscious choice that we choose to drink fanning grade dusty tea (the bottom quality grade!), but rather through a national ignorance of the variety and quality available - even the best tea on most supermarket shelves would be hard pressed to be considered top quality!

We provide people the opportunity to discover inexpensively, and therefore without risk, the wealth and diversity of flavours in the tea world, and also the massive quality gap between the bog ordinary and the rather good: to put it another way, the difference between spending two pence (tea bag) and five pence (good quality leaves) per cup.

By keeping our prices down for loose leaf (in some cases a third of what other retailers are charging - which will come as blessed relief to the already enlightened loose-leaf drinker) and through combining retail with tea house culture, the opportunity truly is there to expand one's horizons and come back to loose leaf.

So, why are we different? Simple: a great, healthy and traditionally British product, at a realistic price, in a modern environment that reflects the health-conscious and forward-thinking world as it is today.

Where are we?

3 Peas Hill · Cambridge · CB2 3PP · UK

We're just off Market Square, next to Essensuals and the Arts Theatre and opposite the Tourist Information Centre - conveniently located for shoppers, students and tourists alike!

Opening hours

Monday - Saturday 10.00am to 7.00pm.
We're open for that all important mid-morning cuppa to prevent the pre-lunch lull, and then we're also open for meeting friends in the afternoon and evening - our location makes us the perfect place to meet before going to the theatre as we'll always be open until curtain up.

Sunday 11am - 6.00pm
Perfectly placed for after-church gossip, or before tackling an essay, some shopping or a matinee performance!

 

Design

It is not uncommon for people to comment on the design of the shop. We took the trouble to do it properly, and by that we mean using real materials like solid oak, limestone flooring, brushed steel - you'll find no MDF pine effect shelving here. Why? Because we believe the customer matters (more than anything else in fact) and we want the customer to understand that.

But First Class Teas was not the brain behind the design itself: that honour lies with Paul Henson, who did a sterling job in creating our temple of tea, who managed to turn a dingy basement into an upbeat modern seating area, and who came up with all manner of nifty solutions for efficiently serving 100 different types of tea both in pots and as takeaways.

The building work was performed by Scotfit Shopfitters of Bradford who put up with an ever evolving design as RSJs, joists, and stud walls were discovered, removed, replaced or avoided...