Day Four: Southwark Tea Walk, Bramah Museum of Tea

Day Four brought us a brisk, yet sunny morning! We continued to be grateful for the weather, as we were headed out for a walking tour through Southwark to take in "400 years of Tea History."

We started in a current office park. However, these buildings were formerly warehouses. The buildings are marked with plaques that indicate what that particular structure used to hold. Here is the plaque for the tea warehouse (notice the tea leaves).

Below is the Lloyds of London building, where the folks work who insure various curiosities, like Elton John's hands and Sharon Stone's legs, among other things. This very modern establishment has humble beginnings in a coffee house. Lloyds coffee house eventually became enlightened and served tea, too. Tho I seem to recall that this was a male-only establishment. Thankfully, times have changed.

Here is our tour group, standing on London Bridge (the new one) with Tower Bridge behind us.

We wrapped up the morning tour at the Bramah Museum of Tea and Coffee (and tea room). Here, I enjoyed a pot of tea, a hot cross bun and engaging conversation with some of my travel mates.

There were men at this tea room too. I appreciate that tearooms are not gender-centered in England. Or, perhaps I should more correctly say the men are not intimidated by the tea rooms.

The museum, while small, has a varied collection of tea and coffee wares. Notice the small teapot in the left of the picture to get a sense of scale for the larger teapot.

Two monkeys and a lady (Mary Jane, on the right).

"Monkey" is the PG Tips mascot. PG Tips is one of, if not the, most popular brand of tea in the UK.