Rebel Tour. (Mad Hatters Tea Shop, Wymondham)

Mad Hatters Tea Shop,

Wymondham,

Opening times Mon-Thur 09:30-16:30,

Fri -Sat 09:00-16:30

Recommended 

Whilst on my bike ride from London to Paris (see recent posts) I was texted by Chris (Mrs Crusader) who had clearly been so inspired by my cafe cycle rides and blog that she wanted to have a go herself. This behaviour obviously needs to be encouraged so here is her first ever review.

"With Kevin (Mr Crusader) having done a bunk across the Channel, myself with guests Ali (who is increasingly hard to please) Jodie (the nettle queen), and Alison (substitute hot chocolate taster), I decided to choose a route from the blogs useful routes facility (see which way) and have a go at an independent, unsupervised cafe review.

Preparing for 'unsupervised' ride

Feeling particularly liberated from the planful approach of our normal tour leader we set off on the Wymondham 20 mile loop (see down the road), with a vague intention to stop at any cafe we passed that took our fancy (especially as the official cafe for that route is only about 200 yards from the start - even we thought that a little early for cake). 

After a leisurely and un eventful 15 miles or so, with the only drama being the occasional question as to whether we were doing the route backwards or forwards, we realised we were potentially going to get home without any cafe stop at all. This would not do, so being the impetuous and spontaneous group that we are (when not dutifully following our normal tour leader) we took a detour into Wymondham town centre to find a new cafe to try. Outside seating soon became an essential as we realised that having ventured out without our tour leader, that also meant nobody had brought a lock. So we chose the Mad Hatters tea shop, who not only provided extra outside seats for us when we explained our bike security problem, but had also arranged to have the outside of the building painted to match with Jodie and Alison's outfits. A nice touch we thought. 

Outside seating be prepared for our visit

Alison was already nominated to review hot chocolate, Jodie had skinny latte to counteract the cake calories, Ali normal latte and I had skinny mocha. All drinks were good with a solid 7.5 rating. Cake selection was also good - see rather blurry photo - 7.5 again.

The cakes are less blurry in real life

The cake quality also very good. Having sampled the chocolate brownie, lemon cake and coconut and raspberry cake we again awarded 7.5. 

The cakes had lots of extra sweets on top. We liked the ambience and it was no surprise when we decide to give a 7.5 rating : cosy inside, very friendly and helpful staff, napkins not under the cake (we have been paying attention during our review training and thus knew how important this is). 

Cakes and drinks ready to be awarded 7.5 ratings

All in all a very good stop and a cafe we would happily recommend. One minor concern was the lack of toilet facility, but on enquiry we were directed to to library, across the road which we managed to walk to quite easily (even in cycle shoes so no problem there).  I can't claim we spent quite as long as usual on scoring things, but we did take it very seriously.  We continued with our rebellious streak by taking a different route home, thereby creating a new route for future mapping out, finishing up at a very neat 25 miles."

Ratings for Mad Hatters Tea Shop

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.5	7.5	7.5	7.5	7.5	7.50