 What a percolator! 
Anyone For a Cuppa?
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Recommendation added: 24/05/2007 18:47
By: dewberry (YSUK rating +700)dewberry has been thanked 1 times for this contribution
"Walking back to our hotel from visiting one of London's fabulous markets I spotted a sign for the Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee; I recognised it as an attraction where I could claim free entry using my London Pass, and with a big passion for coffee I ushered Mark inside before he even knew we'd left the street.
Tea and coffee were once big business for the country, and especially for our industrious capital city, the museum takes an in depth look at the tea and coffee trade and how it developed over the years.
Walking towards the museum you'll see that it's basically a huge old warehouse which has been carefully, and somewhat cleverly, adapted inside to allow them to house separate tea and coffee exhibitions along with a very nice tearoom and small shop. It's very deceiving actually and I was surprised how much they've crammed into such a relatively small building - I say relatively as the warehouse is really massive but it's still brilliant how they've fitted everything inside and still left room to move around in comfort!
We saw the 'Tea' displays first and at first I was disappointed that most of the exhibits seemed to be artwork and intricate looking maps, but I quickly realised that this was part of the informative nature of the place. The museum is trying to educate it's visitors rather than entertain them; as soon as I started to look at the museum like this I began to enjoy the beauty of the artwork and appreciate the history of what is widely known as our national drink, the good old Cuppa.
Artwork based around the countries historically associated with tea production is displayed along the walls of the museum, with each choice of painting or engraving having a small concise description next to it explaining why this particular piece of art is so important to the exhibition. The art is definitely worth spending some time on as it's amazing how different the work is from one country to another, even when both were painted in the same year. What I found fascinating is the way Bramah have chosen the canvases which best represent the tea trade of the past regardless of the quality of the work; the art is without a doubt interesting and relevant, but what they have on display here couldn't really be considered 'great art'.
I particularly enjoyed looking at the collection of tea pots and strainers from over the years which were all in excellent condition despite the age of some of them. I love looking at stuff like this as it helps to bring alive the history of the items when you know someone from centuries ago actually used these items; I could imagine World War One women brewing up in the large functional looking brown and green tea pots, and just as easily picture a mini-skirted child of the 60's making a cuppa (herbal or otherwise…!) in the funkier looking metal pot.
Another interesting set of exhibits tells visitors to the museum how important tea was during the Industrial Revolution - and how it took over from ale and gin as the working classes beverage of choice! This short history lesson is told by way of paintings showing the workers enjoying their mid morning cuppa along with other works of art depicting the lawlessness of the docks and factories when their staff were half bladdered on cheap gin - I know which scenario looked better to me, and it really made me think about what a vitally important role tea had in our society. A small section of the Tea displays is dedicated to the one invention which made tea so much easier to drink - the tea bag. Did you know the tea bag we all know and love today was originally created to counteract the impact of the development of instant coffee? Well, it was. At one time tea and coffee battled one another to be the drink of choice for the UK and while fresh coffee and tea leaves are both time consuming and fiddly to prepare, when the time came that regular housewives could simply boil some water and add coffee granules for an instant drink the various tea companies knew they had to do something to help themselves move with the times. The museum does a great job of guiding visitors through the first unsuccessful trials of the tea bag and showing us what happened when they finally hit on a bag which would make a cuppa *almost* as good as if you'd used a tea pot.
After I felt as though my brain couldn't take any more facts and figures about tea, we moved through to the Coffee exhibition which was really the part of the museum I was most looking forward to seeing. Coffee always seems a much more glamorous drink than tea to me which I think is partly down to its fuller flavour and generally more sophisticated image, and this section of Bramah sort of confirms these feelings. As soon as we walked through the doors I saw that the exhibits in here are much more appealing to look at and consist more of actual items rather than the huge display of artwork contained within the Tea section of the museum.
I absolutely loved looking at the various pieces of old fashioned coffee making equipment as I'm generally interested in the brewing (and drinking!) of 'real' coffee. There are some fabulous glass and ceramic coffee makers going back to when our country first started to view coffee as a mainstream beverage. Most of the more quirky and downright complicated looking contraptions were created by great Victoria engineers; some were similar in appearance to the filter coffee machines we have available today, although many of the coffee making machines displayed in the museum are more wacky than anything we'd buy these days - wackiest of all the steam train shaped coffee percolator pictured above which looked much more sparkly and ornate in the flesh! Imagine having that sitting next to your trendy Smeg fridge, although I can see how sought after this piece would have been in Victorian times when trains were all the rage!
Also on display are authentic espresso machines as well as coffee cups and plenty of silverware for you to cast your eye over. There are loads of antiques relating to the coffee industry on display inside Bramah; what it's important not to forget while browsing the museum is the fact that although we consider ourselves coffee connoisseurs in this country, we're still relative coffee novices when you think that Arabs have been enjoying this wonderful drink for more than 1000 years! There's obviously nothing this old on show in the museum, but I adored the Arabian coffee cups and saucers which make up part of the exhibition as the colours and designs are so much more vibrant and alive than anything I've ever had my coffee served in. Also do look out for the tiny Italian coffee cups which are decorated with gold leaf and look so gorgeous that I could almost forgive them for being so ridiculously small that I doubt each cup would hold more than a mouthful of coffee!
Walking through the Coffee exhibition I could definitely detect the aroma of a rich, robust coffee although couldn't quite work out whether this was piped into the room as a addition to the displays or if it was simply drifting in the right direction from the Bramah Tea Rooms! I'd seen everything in the museum by the time I became fully aware of this gorgeous coffee scent so decided to follow my nose and grab a coffee (or perhaps a tea?) in the elegant and traditional café located within the museum. I soon realised that coffee was out of the question as the Tea Room is just that, a room where you can enjoy one of several options of 'afternoon tea'. All teas brewed here are made using traditional techniques and (importantly) real tea leaves in a pot - not a pyramid bag in sight! You have a choice of tea blends and staff in the Tea Room are more than happy to explain the different teas and give their advice on the one to try based on what type of tea you usually drink and if you have any particular likes or dislikes.
I decided to have a Cream Tea which consisted of a gloriously fresh homemade scone topped with clotted cream and jam, a small slice of vanilla sponge and a cup of the deepest most delicious tea I've ever tasted. At £7 this snack may seem expensive, but the quality of the room and experience of being seated and served in such a quaint little place made the cost more than reasonable as far as I was concerned - although Mark did grumble a bit about how a pack of scones and box of Tetley would cost a damn sight less in Tesco! You can also choose from a full 'Afternoon Tea' complete with cucumber sandwiches, or opt for your choice of tea with a piece of cake.
We rounded off our visit to Bramah with a quick look around their small-but-perfectly-formed gift shop. Here I bought a bag of wonderfully fragrant Ethiopian coffee, a book chronicling the history of the coffee trade and a selection of postcards depicting the various methods of tea transportation over the years. This cost just under 20 quid, so possibly not the cheapest souvenir shop in the world, but what I bought was of good enough quality to just about justify the expense!
The Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee is fully accessible to disabled visitors and also families with pushchairs; there is plenty of room between the exhibits making it easy to manoeuvre around for those with mobility problems and there's also a disabled toilet and easy access to both the gift shop and tea room. I'm not sure young children would really get the most from this museum as I know my two wouldn't have appreciated the huge amount of art, and I don't think they would have been too interested in the exhibits of tea and coffee machines either. I found the museum interesting and informative to a point, but there was a distinct lack of any 'fun' aspect to make the place more attractive to children and teenagers. Shame really as the tea and coffee industries were a huge part of our history which I think has definitely been forgotten over the years. Admission into the museum costs £4 for adults and a family of up to six can take advantage of their family ticket which is priced at only £10, although don't forget you can get in totally free if you have a London Pass.
To find Bramah is relatively easy using London's public transport. As I said, we were walking past anyway and happened to spot signage directing us to the museum so I know the place is well signposted providing you're in that particular area anyway. The nearest tube station is London Bridge, on the Jubilee and Northern lines, and the walk to Bramah from here will take you less than five minutes. Alternatively the 381 bus from Waterloo will drop you even closer to the museum entrance.
The Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee
40 Southwark Street
London
SE1 1UN
Tel: 020 7403 5650"
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