Birthday Weekend in Sydney Day 2 - Breakfast at The Tea Cosy

The Tea Cosy Irish Tea Room
http://www.irishdesign.com.au/g/4145/the-tea-cosy---tea-room.html

It's awesome when stars align and things work out. I got really silly by the end of Friday night and was jumping up and down proclaiming that I 'must' have scones for breakfast the next day. I have a special relationship with scones. When I used to bake frequently, variety scones would pop up every second day. I love scones. When going to high tea, scones are my favorite tier. Forget fancy shmancy miniature tarts and macarons, give me a well made scone and plenty of cream and jam any day.

I was thrilled... THRILLED... to see that there was a tea shop in Sydney that was renouned for scones. In fact, they had a scone clock out the front indicating when the last batch was made. In this fashion, you were almost garunteed to have a freshly baked scone no matter when you sat down to order. Furthermore, we had plans to go to Toronga Zoo that day and The Tea Cosy was conveniently located at the Northern end of Sydney CBD. As I say, stars aligned.


I suspected The Tea Cosy would be easy to miss but clever Marc kept his eye out for an Irish flag and we found the building it was located in. There are a few tables at the front but the majority of the tea room is out the back in a miniature courtyard. It's quite charming and peaceful, cut off from the buziness of The Rocks.

We didn't muck around with individual orders but rather, chose a scone tasting basket for two. It came with a variety of scones, cream and our choice of 2 types of homemade jam. We also got to select a pot of tea each.

As we took up a small table in the courtyard, I walked around inspecting the goods that are The Tea Cosy's namesake. These were the adorable knitted tea cosys on display. I'm not an avid tea drinker so I can only guess that the function (if any) of these items is to keep the tea warm for longer?? Whatever the purpose, I was impressed with the detail and also how they got them on over the teapots (still haven't figured that out).

Strawberry green tea and Irish breakfast

I went with a strawberry green tea and Marc chose Irish breakfast. As I mentioned above, I'm much more of a coffee than tea person but I suppose the tea was pleasant enough. They were all loose-leaf tea and thus superior to simply seeing a Twinnings label sticking out from under the teapot lid.

Tasting basket of scones for two

Our scones arrived not much longer. The basket contained apple and cinnamon scones, sultana scones and plain scones. Each was reasonably large.

Homemade triple berry jam and pear and vanilla jam

The jams I chose was triple berry and pear and vanilla. As interesting as it was to try a pear jam, I still preferred the classic berry and cream combo for the scones.

Variety of scones

The first scone I tasted was the apple and cinnamon one. It smelt wonderful with a homely apple pie scent. The flavors were mild, which is what I prefer in a scone.The texture was light, fluffy and just a bit sticky, in other words, exactly how a scone should be. The other scone varieties were much the same.

Close-up of scone

I was very full after my first scone but stretched my limits to accomodate another half. I was very happy with my scone fix. I wouldn't say these are The Absolute Best scones I've ever tasted but they were very good. I think that key features of scones is that they need to be fresh, well-baked and generous, and The Tea Cosy definitely ticked those boxes.