Taking Tea in Kent

June 12, 2023

Deblyns Teashop & Garden
30 High Street, New Romney, Kent TN28 8BZ
deblyns.co.uk • +44 1797 369020

Deblyns Teashop is what many people will think of as a timeless cottage tearoom that offers a gentle rural atmosphere, a pretty garden, vintage china teawares, and an excellent tea menu of loose-leaf teas to drink or buy to enjoy at home. Photograph Courtesy of Lynn Coutts.

Deblyns Teashop is the sort of traditional tearoom that tourists and foreign visitors absolutely love. The Grade II–listed building has links back to 1287, and the building was once a hall house (a tall, one-roomed dwelling house built of plaster and wood and with a tall sloping roof). Later in its history, it was divided horizontally to create a downstairs and an upstairs, and tea is served on both floors today. The small town of New Romney also has a long history, and the local people are said to have fought off William the Conqueror’s first attempts to take England before his victory at the Battle of Hastings further along the coast in 1066. Sitting in the pretty walled garden or at a table indoors, it’s easy to imagine medieval life in this small historic town. It lies today on the main route that links Dover, where ferries from Europe dock, to the small Saxon town of Rye and the popular seaside towns of Eastbourne and Brighton. Tearoom owner Lynn Coutts has created a haven of gentility and old-fashioned calm for locals and travelers alike. The tearoom serves comforting pots of tea, wonderful scones, “Vintage” Afternoon Teas on tiered cake stands, High Teas with toasted buttered crumpets, and Savoury Teas with scrumptious cheese scones and caramelized onion chutney. The cakes and scones are all baked in the tearoom kitchen, and the menu of sandwiches, panini, salads, and ploughman’s lunches offers something delicious for everyone.

The teas are all loose-leaf blends that include English Breakfast, Assam, Ceylon, green tea, spicy chai, Lapsang Souchong, and Earl Grey. Locals call in regularly to enjoy relaxing cups of tea, and Deblyns also hosts special tea parties for family gatherings, birthdays, and anniversaries and to mark seasonal occasions such as Christmas and Easter. Deblyns really is everything you could hope for from a traditional English tearoom.