The Tea Lady
Having travelled the length and breadth of the country in search of good tea rooms for the past fifteen years, Margaret Thornby can lay claim to being something of an expert in this field. She has now published, with Whitehill Publishing, 4 Editions of Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain. The unique features of the tea room guides are that:
1. Margaret Thornby carries out all the research herself, often visiting up to 10 times as many tea rooms as she includes in each Edition of the Guide.
2.The research is entirely independent – no tea room can pay to be in the guide or influence inclusion by any means other than its merit as a tea room.
3.The research is conducted anonymously. Margaret wants to experience each tea room as any other customer might, with no advance warning given to tea room owners and, therefore, no preferential treatment influencing her views. Her visit is a snapshot of each tea room on the day she visits as it would be for any other customer.
4.Important details such as physical access to and within the tea rooms and whether loose leaf tea is served is included by each tea room listing.
Such is the growing interest in tea and tea rooms these days that Margaret has also, with Whitehill Publishing, launched a quarterly magazine called tea. This is aimed at people who love tea rooms, tea and all things tea and edited by Margaret herself. This magazine stands on its own in this country and features tea merchants, tea rooms, the ‘politics’ of tea, tea outside as well as within the UK and much more. Margaret’s passion is undoubtedly loose leaf tea and on this she stands firm – no tea bags dunked in a mug for this lady. Her standards are high whether it is service at tea rooms to quality of teas sold by merchants. She is upholding the great British tradition of tea drinking and interest in our daily brew.
Margaret Thornby can be contacted via Whitehill Publishing. She does not send out or agree to photographs in order to preserve her anonymity. Once people recognise her, she will no longer be able to conduct her research successfully. She is, however, quite happy to be interviewed by telephone, or by responding to questions sent by fax or email.
Fax: 0116 2351844
email: – address to Margaret Thornby