Coffee Break: Mad Hatters Tea Room, Chester

When you find yourself stuck on a rainy ‘summer’ Sunday afternoon, you’ve got two choices. You can either stay home and wait for the clouds to pass or you can go out and brave the storm for a slice of cake. And you know any option with cake is the right one.

That's exactly what we did last month on a day out in Chester when we came across the super-cute Mad Hatters Tea Room. Located on the The Rows, this tea room's cosy setting and colourful display of cupcakes made it the ideal place to get out of the drizzle and indulge.

On this occasion we opted for Harry's hot chocolate - with marshmallows and cream obviously - and a couple of rainbow sprinkled vanilla cupcakes. Absolutely amazing, the best cupcakes we've had in a long time and you can even buy some of your own hot chocolate to try at home. 

As the name may suggest, there are plenty of Alice-themed accents throughout for any Wonderland fans out there from the special Afternoon Tea names to the rustic menus - we will definitely be back soon to try The Red Queen's Afternoon Tea (priced at £20pp). 

The Mad Hatters Tea Room is open 7 days a week. For more info and to check out menus visit their website.

http://www.madhatterstearooms.co.uk/

Coffee Break: Jaunty Goat, Chester

Jaunty latte.

I’ve lived in Chester for just under four months now and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t done that much exploring. My job isn’t city centre based so my local coffee joint is sadly the Starbucks concession in the nearby Holiday Inn. The sexy world of journalism eh?

But there’s one place I’ve always wanted to try and that’s the Jaunty Goat on Bridge Street, a cool and sophisticated coffee spot that’s supposed to offer the best coffee in the city.

I popped in yesterday afternoon and my first thought was: is a MacBook a prerequisite in here? Furnished with long communal, bronze effect tables and church-like bench seats, quirky wicker art all with a neutral ‘beachy’ and rose gold hue, this place looks like the kind of place you could really cram in the hours getting some work done or just catching up with friends. I’d use the word ‘hipster’ but I was sat there with my fake snakeskin boots, iPhone and writing a post for my tea blog, so I’m not really one to talk!

It is TOTALLY my kind of place.

Loving the colour scheme here.

The coffee itself is fantastic and they’ve got a great range of teas for you to try too. And the CAKE – wow, so many to choose from. Unfortunately after spending my morning at the gym at 6.30am I decided not to indulge on this occasion but I’m thinking it’s likely I’ll be rushing back here this weekend to make up for it.

The Jaunty Goat is described as Chester’s best coffee – I can definitely see why. 

Laura.

Available to eat in or take away. For more information, visit their Facebook page here!