Tea in Cambridge

Peacocks Tearoom

65 Waterside • Ely • Cambridgeshire CB7 4AU

peacockstearoom.co.uk • +44 1353 661 100

Many people who visit Cambridge also choose to spend some time in Ely, the neighbouring historic city whose vast 14th-century cathedral dominates the skyline with its octagonal, hollow, gothic tower. Other places of interest include Oliver Cromwell’s 17th-century house; a stained-glass museum and antiques centre; and the glorious riverside with its shady willows, narrowboats, waterfront arts centre and, just a few steps from the quay, Peacocks Tearoom. This welcoming traditional tearoom has won so many awards that it is well-known throughout the region and beyond, and people come back and back for more well-brewed pots of very good tea and delicious home-baked scones, cakes, and other treats. In 2007, Peacocks was named UK Top Tearoom by the UK Tea Council’s Tea Guild and received Awards of Excellence in all the guild’s subsequent annual awards. In 2016, it was placed in TripAdvisor’s Hall of Fame after six years of Awards of Excellence. In 2013, Peacocks was listed in The Times newspaper’s Top 5 Places to take tea, and Country Living magazine named it their favourite tearoom. So after a wander around the historic sites and a stroll along the river, a visit to Peacocks is an absolute must!

Choose the really wonderful Devon Cream Tea with warm fruited scones, jam, and clotted cream; or a Chocolate Dream Cream Tea with chocolate scones, a chocolate brownie, and a big mug of hot chocolate or a pot of tea. The Full Monty Afternoon Tea includes finger sandwiches, scones, and a slice of one of the scrumptious cakes; and the Pink Perfection Afternoon Tea comes with smoked salmon sandwiches, a glass of rosé sparkling wine, scones with jam and clotted cream, a chocolate brownie, and a pot of tea. The tea menu is spectacular and offers loose-leaf teas from almost every tea-producing country (including the Azores, the US, Brazil, Nepal, Turkey, Australia, and the UK). It lists more than 50 black teas, nine green, two white, three oolong, and a puerh fermented tea. Whichever you choose, you can count on it being brewed correctly in a pretty pot with a lift-out infuser basket that allows you to separate the leaf from the liquor as soon as it reaches your preferred strength and flavour.

Rachel and George Peacock started serving lunches and afternoon teas in their home in 2004 and, as they became better known and much busier, the tearoom gradually took over their kitchen, then the hall, then the very pretty garden, and then the family dining room and the lounge. When the upper floor was converted into two self-contained bed-and-breakfast suites, George and Rachel had to build themselves a new house at the back of the tearoom. What is so attractive and welcoming about Peacocks, with its friendly and helpful staff, the homely décor, the wonderful, top-notch, home-cooked food, is that it does really feel like a family home where everyone is welcome and where visitors end up chatting to others seated nearby as if they are all guests in a friend’s house. It is not hard to understand why people love it so much and write such glowing reviews as the following: “Peacocks is exactly what a tearoom should be. . . . This is a quintessentially English tearoom on the water- front at Ely housed in a beautiful old building with a little garden to the front, bedecked in wisteria. . . . Peacocks do tea remarkably well. . . . Greeted and served with a smile . . . Wonderfully mismatched quaint teacups and saucers . . . Fantastic cream tea . . . Did I tell you about the chocolate scones which they serve here? Ah! They are to die for. It is justly considered one of the best tearooms of England.”