Afternoon Tea

A group of friends and I recently visited Manchester’s Sugar Junction Tea Rooms for a spot of traditional afternoon tea. Be prepared, this is no ordinary tea room. You may know that there are several beverage establishments in Manchester claiming to be the purveyors of tea but I’ve yet to sample anything quite like Sugar Junction before. When you walk through the door you are instantly transported back a good 50-60 years with the decor and fine china reminiscent of Granny’s house. Behind the counter stands several shelves filled with the glass jars you get in sweet shops of yore, except these are filled with no less than 25 types loose tea.

The menus give you a brief history of afternoon tea as well as temping your taste buds with an assortment of wonderful cakes and sandwiches. Everything from just tea, to cream tea (warm scones with clotted cream and home made jam) to traditional afternoon teas that come with a variety of sandwiches and cakes to keep you going (alongside a regular menu that includes breakfasts, lunches and salads).

When we arrived, Sugar Junction was having the first of their Gramophone Sunday Sessions (of which I hope they’ll be more soon) which really added to the vintage atmosphere, it really felt like stepping back in to another time.

Out of our merry bunch, half went with the Cream Tea option (with 2 of the the aforementioned scones) and the other half went with the Traditional Afternoon Tea option as the draw of the delish sounding cakes was too much. We each got a pot of tea of our preferred blend, which if you can finish it all will be replenished.This is what we got between 3 people, not to mention the same size rack again filled with sandwiches.

But not to worry, if you can’t manage four types of cakes (scones, lemon drizzle, meringue & a strawberry tart)  in one afternoon, they kindly provide cake boxes so you can take some home for later!

It was a good 2 hours later that we left Sugar Junction stuffed and happy on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I could get used to being a tea lady.