Metrodeco is entering this year’s awards in the ‘Best Cafe’ section.

There are loads of great entrants – but if you’ve ever been to Metrodeco and you think we deserve to win, we be very touched if you’d vote for us.

You can do that here (it only takes about 45 seconds!).

Many, many thanks

Helen and Maggie

Owners, Metrodeco

So you love your wake-me-up breakfast tea in the morning – and maybe you’ve  tried a spot of green tea, full of anti oxidants for a healthy boost to your immune system.

You may have even given a herbal tea  (or ‘infusions’ as they’re known in the trade) a go. Chamomile blends are just the ticket to wind down for bed and a mint brew is a great choice for an after dinner digestif.

But, like many, you may have always thought ‘rooibos’ (or red bush tea) is just too odd. In fact the description I found on Wikipedia would even put me off for life if I wasn’t already a massive fan.

It describes rooibos  as “a broom-like member of the legume family of plants growing in South African fynbos (shrubland found in the Western Cape)”

But please don’t be put off, you won’t be slurping lentils with your Victoria sponge but a golden brew that is slightly sweet and nutty and just a little bit malty.

It is also great as a bed-time drink as it contains no caffeine. Add to this the health benefits – natural antihistamine and anti-inflammatory properties – and this ruby-coloured drink with its aromatic aftertaste is definitely worth a try.

Which is why we have added two new rooibos teas to our increasingly popular Salome Kick.

Terracotta Sunburst, with vanilla and rhubarb

The first is our Terracotta Sunburst (left), a new rooibos, vanilla and rhubarb tea, which was named by one of our customers.

Our second new blend is a charity tea that will support the Topsy Foundation, which provides relief services to individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

For every pouch of Topsy Tea bought (£4.80), we’re giving £1.50 to the charity. We’re also donating 20p for every £2.40 pot purchased in the tea rooms.

Topsy Tea (below) is combination of rooibos and Earl Grey.

Topsy Tea, our charity rooibos

So, if you fancy a change or are already a committed rooibis drinker then come in and try our range. You won’t be disappointed. Better still, if you visit Metrodeco, mention that you’ve read this blog and you will get a free sample of each.

They are likely to be dogged by impersonaters for decades to come.

But Kate Middleton and Prince William could not have expected to be impersonated by dogs – until we hosted our Canine Royal Wedding.

The stars of the show, red setter ‘Kate Puggleton’ and ‘Prince Woofiam’, a Portuguese Estrala, dressed as the soon-to-be-married royals as they tied the knot in a mock ceremony.

As well as giving a humorous nod to the real Royal Wedding, we hope the stunt will help highlight the cruelty of puppy farming as well as raising over £200 for Be Puppy Farm Aware. 

Maggie Morgan, co-owner of Metrodeco, which holds regular doggy tea parties and has a special dog menu, said: “You might think we’re barking mad but we wanted a novel way to celebrate the Royal Wedding at the same time as highlighting a real animal cruelty issue.”

Celebrity vet Marc Abraham, who donated a signed copy of his new autobiography Vet on Call to be raffled at the event, said: “This was a fantastic way to bring a horrific practice into the public eye. Puppies bred by puppy farms are usually kept in horrible, dark conditions, totally unsocialised and riddled with both infectious and inbred often incurable diseases.”

Terracotta Sunburst, our new rooibos with vanilla and rhubarb

So finally, the results are in!

We asked you to come up with a fitting name for our new loose leaf tea and the suggestions have been flooding in for the last week. Slurping on the new rooibos blend, we debated which entry best befitted both the tea and the 1930s art deco ambience at Metrodeco.

We even ordered the cuppa from our staff, trying out each name in turn, to see which one rolled most exquisitely off the tongue, making it a joy to say as well as to drink.

So after much mental torture and agonising deliberation, we have come to a decision.

The name we have chosen for our new rooibis, vanilla and rhubarb tea is…Terracotta Sunburst.

We felt that it really does embrace the essence of the tea while encapsulating a reference to a true Art Deco shape (‘sunburst’) used in many mirrors of the period.

So congratulations to Mike Lank for coming up with such a great name and thank you to all the other entrants.

Mike wins a free Afternoon Tea for Two (worth £28), a pouch of Terracotta Sunburst and – best of all, we think – a free pot of that blend any time he visits Metrodeco for the next year. And to show our appreciation to everyone who entered the competition, we would like to give you all a cup of the tea you nearly named. So please come in and enjoy a pot of Terracotta Sunburst on the house when you’ve got a moment to enjoy a tea that tastes – and sounds – exquisite.

And if you want to buy any of our 20 gourmet blends and single leaf teas online (they make great gifts!), visit our online tea shop.

Okay the judges are retiring to consider your suggestions for the name of our new vanilla and rhubarb rooibos tea.

As we explained here, the winner will get a free Afternoon Tea for two (worth £28), a gourmet pouch of tea emblazoned with the winning name (worth about £5) and a free pot of that blend whenever they visit Metrodeco in the next year.

There were so many excellent entries, our panel of experts has asked for an extra 24 hours to deliberate.

Don’t be frightened to try and sway their decision in the comments section below!

So – in no particular order – here are the choices:

1. Red Headed Woman by Steph Mann after the film starring 1930s icon Jean Harlow – Steph adds: “The vanilla made me think of her, as she was the original platinum blonde after all!”

2. Gold Dust by Sandra Duquenne from the 1931 film ‘Gold Dust Gertie’ – Sandra adds: “Gold dust also refers to South Africa (rooibos tea), dust is like the dry ground in Africa and gold is reminiscent of vanilla.”

3. Continental Twist by Robin Houghton, which she says conveys the eclectic mix of the three main ingredients and invokes the ‘Continental’, Fred Astaire’s 1930s dance.

4. The Great Gatsby, also by Robin because it was written in the 1930s (by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

5. Rooibos and Custard, by Michelle Stonehill and inspired by the ‘Roobarb and Custard’ BBC cartoon

6. Roobarb’s Delight, also by Michelle for the same reason

7. Rhunilla’s come here Rooibos (can you get it up?) by Greg Dreyfus

8. Tisane nice brew, also by Greg

9. Rhube/Rooib in a Black Armchair by Rosie Nicchitta after Picasso’s 1930s painting Nude in a Black Armchair

10. The Ghost of Vanilla, also by Rosie

11. Pellissier Silk by Julie Barnett, who says  “silk picks up on the smooth taste of vanilla and the Pellissier Building is one of the most famous examples of art deco in the US.

12. Ring-a-Ding Rooibos by The Brighton Hussey, who says: “I got that from a 1930s jive talking dictionary … it means ‘having a good time’…”

13. The Embassy Tea by TBTHCO after Wells Coates’ Embassy Court.

14. Boil some water! Lots of it! by Nina because it was one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s collection of tales ‘The Pat Hobby Stories’

15. Rhubarb at Nightfall, also by Nina after ‘Rumour at Nightfall’ by Graham Greene

16. Terracotta Sunburst by Mike because terracotta encapsulates the ‘red’ of
redbush and sunburst was a common art deco motif

17. Wedding Belles also by Mike because Metrodeco’s own Helen has just got engaged!

18. Tango Tickle by Ess Kore

19. Candy Girl by Sarah after the song and the fact that candy would be the rhubarb and custard element in reference to vintage sweets.

20. Noel Coward’s Rouge by Justin who says he was “playing about with ideas along the lines of ‘Cowardy Custard’ and so on…”

21. Mackintosh tea by Debbie who adds: “Gorgeous clean lines for a gorgeous clean cuppa”

22. Rhubanilla by Eudalia

23. Red Airport Tea by Vicky Townshend (aka FlyingRoobarb)

24. An Understated Romance by Henry Sayers

25. Fes-tea-val tea by Brighton & Hove Food Festival

How would you like a free

And how about a free gourmet pouch of our newest blend to take home with you afterwards?

In fact – what the heck! – how about a free pot of that blend every time you come to the tea rooms FOR A YEAR?

Sound good? Well read on – and you could have all three.

You see, we’re introducing three new blends to our tea menu to mark the relaunch of our online tea shop, which will see a revamped website and new packaging (more on that later!).

We’ve named two of those blends already and we want your suggestions for the third name.

To get you started, here’s the first of the three, Metrodeco’s first ever de-tox tea, which we’re calling “Liberty Spirit”.

"Liberty Spirit" detox tea

It’s a detox infusion of licorice, peppermint, ginger, dandelion leaf, burdock root and milk thistle.

Our second new blend is a charity tea that will support the Topsy Foundation, which provides relief services to individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

For every pouch of Topsy Tea bought (£4.80), we’re giving £1.50 to the charity. We’re also donating 20p for every £2.40 pot purchased in the tea rooms.

Topsy Tea (below) is combination of Rooibos (Afrikaans for ‘Red Bush’) and Earl Grey.

"Topsy Tea"

Which brings me onto ‘the tea with no name’.

Pictured below, it will be Metrodeco’s third Rooibos (including the Topsy mentioned above and the ‘Salome Kick’ already on our menu) and will contain rhubarb and vanilla.

Name this tea and win lots of stuff!

So this is where you come in.

If you clicked the link above to our online tea shop, you’ll have noticed that virtually all of our 20 other blends and single leaf teas all have names associated with the art deco movement or with the 1930s (or both). So we’d like to continue this tradition.

To re-cap, apart from your brilliant suggestion being immortalised forever on our menu, you could win the following if your suggestion is picked above all others:

• An Afternoon Tea for two worth £28
• A pouch of the currently unnamed tea (worth around £5) to take home
• A free pot of that blend whenever you visit Metrodeco in the next year

If you’re on Twitter just hit the ‘retweet’ button below and add your suggestion to the start or the end of the tweet and  ‘@metrodeco’.

Alternatively, you could put your answer (and a contact) in the comments section below.

We’ll announce the winner in a week.

Good luck!

Looks like Habitat is fostering a culture of listening and people like Matt are at the forefront of this. Well done and sincere thanks to both.

Helen

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I’ve just spoken to the rudest, most inconsiderate human being in Brighton’s retail sector.

Anyone who knows Metrodeco will know that we are usually only praise-worthy of other businesses – so this blog might give you an idea of how annoyed we are.

Anyway, having visited Habitat, I arrived home to find that the shop assistant had forgotten to put four cups into the bag he had been filling for me as he wrapped my purchases.

We’d been chatting pleasantly and there was a lot of wrapping to be done so he was probably distracted. Easy mistake to make and I certainly wasn’t going to hold it against him.  Besides, all I’d have to do was call the store and ask for the items to be sent to my home.

Or so I thought.

When I rang a young woman answered (not the rude, inconsiderate person I mentioned above) and confirmed my items were there at the shop. But, to my surprise, when I asked whether they could be delivered, given that it was the cashier’s mistake and that I couldn’t get back to the store easily, she quoted company policies about ‘left items’. Though trying to be pleasant, she was actually very irritating. When I told her what happened, she questioned my version of events, saying “we don’t know that, do we?”. We? Who was ‘we’? I knew exactly what had happened.

She then told me Habitat couldn’t deliver because staff weren’t insured after they left the shop and that it would be an extra expense to the store. What?!? Was I actually hearing this right? I asked to speak to the store manager and the situation deteriorated rapidly.

The patronising, self important, couldn’t-care-less bureaucrat spoke to me as if I was some kind of idiot wasting his precious time.

To make matters worse I didn’t even get a ‘sorry’. Not even a conditional apology, like “we’re sorry if you’re right about what happened”.

This time I was told I had been done ‘a favour’ because Habitat had not re-sold my property or thrown it in the bin. I was told he had to be “objective” about the matter, meaning he would not admit it may have been Habitat’s mistake.

Exasperated by his tone, I asked him if he was  reading from an autocue or an ‘idiot board’.

His reply came straight from the Basil Fawlty School of Customer Services. “Habitat can’t afford autocues. But if you want a board, I can get one from the office.”

Ha, bloody ha.

Just to be clear, most of the staff at this branch in Brighton are charm personified. Over the months I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds stocking my tea shop, Metrodeco, with pretty crockery and never had any problems with sales staff.

But this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the patronising idiocy of the store’s management. I was willing to overlook the first incident, even though I was upset, but enough is enough.

I seriously doubt a company with this style of customer services does something as customer service-orientated as monitor what people are saying about it on the internet.

But if you are reading, Habitat, understand this:

1. I’ll think twice before visiting your store again.

2. If a customer leaves the shop without their shopping, whether it is their fault or not, don’t start quoting paragraph 12, sub-section 4a of the Officious Twerp’s Handbook at them – just be nice.

3. And don’t, whatever you do, no matter how woefully poor your customer service policies are, be patronising, make fun of their frustration and immediately go on the attack. That’s just rude.

Helen Wilkinson, co-owner, Metrodeco.

We’ve had some tweets from people saying the swarm badge already been unlocked in the UK. Yes, we know! But what we are saying is that we don’t think there has ever been a successful dedicated swarm badge party in the UK, where the sole purpose was to unlock the badge.

The badge has only ever been unlocked where there have been people already gathered – like football matches, festivals and conferences. We’ve checked with Foursquare – but please tell us if we’re wrong. So we think it would be special to be the first successful swarm badge party.

And now the updates

1. Apart from a free glass of bubbly, you will also get a free sing at Brighton’s home of Karaoke, Lucky Voice, if you check in when we attempt the swarm. Details at the Lucky Voice blog.
2. Foursquare have promised us the network will be working during our attempt so there shouldn’t be any technical problems.
3. The current invitation suggests a hashtag #BrightonFoursquare4sqflashmob but this seems too long (hat tip @aral). Someone else kindly built the invitation for us – so we can’t change it. But can we please use the shorter hashtag #ukswarm instead?

Finally, this will only work if you invite people to come along to Metrodeco, 38 Upper St James’s Street, Brighton, from 7-8pm on Thursday August 12. So please tell all your friends online and offline.

See you next week!

Helen,

Metrodeco