Tea shop prejudice overcome

Pay no attention to those bleeding heart liberals who tell you that prejudice is a terrible thing that disadvantages those who are the misrepresented by it. Pay even less attention to those stony-hearted right-wingers who tell you that it’s ok to be prejudiced because only bleeding heart liberals care about the disadvantaged.
The reason you don’t want to be prejudiced is that it will blind you to unexpected opportunities and joys. My most recent example of a prejudice that could have led me to overlook a jewel came in the small Suffolk town of Sudbury, where a thirst for tea and a desire on my companion’s part for cake led us to The Secret Garden. Now, my experience of tea-shops in English market towns is that they offer stewed or weak tea, along with not particularly nice cakes, at rickety tables with uncomfortable chairs and with surly or incompetent service. This is a summary, you understand. It’s only in the best establishments that you get all of these together, but you can usually count on two or three elements. Never order coffee in such an establishment.
These places are greeted by English pleasure-seekers with cries of delight and described by them with tears of nostalgia afterwards. It’s like the English sense of humour and liking for waxy potatoes: incomprehensible to me.
The Secret Garden looked from outside like a perfect example of the genre,but inside turned out to be far otherwise. For a start, it seemed to be run by a pair of French brothers, and its chalkboard of specials made no mention of chips, although there was the possibility of an omelette.
The menu started promisingly, but not exceptionally so for London visitors, with assertions about fair trade, organic products and the option of soya milk, before listing the espresso-based coffee options.
Then it launched into a list of five different coffees available in a cafetiére, including tasting notes. Hot chocolate could be made either with cocoa powder (not a mix with powdered milk) or dark chocolate, the latter to be served with a home-made marshmallow.
Teas were categorised as blended, black unscented (seven varieties), black scented (two), green unscented and scented, white and oolong scented. In all there were 14 possible teas, not counting herbal teas and fruit infusions.
Emboldened by this lavish display, we decided to risk the food. Croque Monsieur Maison was toasted cheese (possibly Gruyère) with cured country sausage on toasted sourdough bread with a green salad. It was delicious, but not as good as my companion’s rillettes of pork, which came with similar toast and crunchy gherkins. Only stern reminders that I needed to taste it in order to be able to write about it (and a threat to sulk for the rest of the afternoon) bought me a bite of this. The rillettes were slightly smoother than I would have expected - more terrine than rillettes, perhaps - but the flavour was a balance of meaty and fatty, cut with a subtle amount of seasoning, just enough to bring out the flavour.
This gem among tea-shops is licensed. Although we didn’t feel that three o’clock on a sunny afternoon with a country walk ahead of us was an appropriate time for drinking, I would love to go back to try the select wine list, especially the Rivesaltes Mas Christine Roussillion. Who could resist the description: “tangerine marmalade flavoured wine made from late harvest Grenache Blanc”?
My prejudice against tea-shops in English market towns remains untouched,because this was so clearly an exception, but I am prepared to learn the lesson that you cannot tell where these exceptions will arise, and always be prepared to override prejudice in quest of unexpected joy.