Crabtree & Evelyn Tearoom

After a fun afternoon touring Shakespeare’s closets (wore a lot of codpieces, as it turns out. Randy old playwright!), an afternoon tea was a must-​have break. A very nice lady (Chloe) in Nash’s House (one of the aforementioned closets, although the house is apparently not there any more. Long story. Visit Stratford if you want to know more) recommended Crabtree & Evelyn. «But we want tea, not skin lotion!» we barked, yet Chloe was resolute. «No!» was her riposte. «Make thee to Crabtree & Evelyn,» she commanded, even pronouncing the ampersand in full, if you don’t mind, «for their teas are indeed high, and their scones laden with clotted cream from the most clotted of available cows.»
(I apologize for the flowery prose. Stratford does this to a person. Be thankful it’s not iambic pentameter.)
So it turns out that upstairs from the lotion shoppe there is a petite and very lovely tea shoppe, the whole thing being in a house of some historic significance… just like every other joint in town. We ordered teas, coffees, and juices for our troop, and a selection of delicious confections: Millionaire Shortbread (shortbread with caramel and chocolate on it), Victoria Sponge, fudge brownie, and scones both with and without clotted cream, jam, and butter.
Ridiculous. Absolutely bloody ridiculous, that’s what it was. Good, that is, my dear friends. If you’ve got tastebuds, they’re crying out for a bit o’ this delectable treatery. The cream justifies the existence of bovines worldwide; the jam is a poem to preserved fruit; the lemon curd is a soliloquy on citrusy stuff from Kurdistan (probably); and the scones — one of which *had sultanas in it* (be still my beating and somewhat-​more-​lard-​laden heart) — were warm and moist just exactly where they should be moist.
Heaven.
And we had the added theater of being chased around the joint by a persistent bee, for whom no manner of tempting with a pot of jam would do, until he was sprayed with disinfecting soap and smushed by one of the nice tearoom gals.
Quite an experience, no? Visit, and be well. You can even buy lotion to deal with the (completely worth it) cellulite that will be an inevitable consequence. (JOKE!)