I am not someone into café culture.  Not for me long hours sitting in a Costa, laptop open on the table in front of me, nursing a flat white.  I can’t tell my mocha from my macchiato; wouldn’t know my almond milk from my oat milk.  Don’t want chocolate sprinkles on top.  It’s just not my scene.

However, on the very odd occasion when I do want a café, what do I find?  It is shut.

This is the typical scenario.  I am away from home.  Might be a holiday.  Might be a day-trip.  Most likely, somewhere not known to me.  It is mid-afternoon.  I can be even more precise.  It is 4 o’clock in the afternoon, or a few minutes before it.  And what does 4 o’clock mean?  Tea time.

It is a time that is quintessentially British.  4 o’clock.  Everything stops for tea.  And so, in order to have a cup of tea, I go looking for a café.  Not a chain café.  Not a Costa, or a Starbucks, or a Caffè Nero, I want an independent café; ideally, a ye olde worlde tearoom-style café.  And when I find one.  It is shut.

There is an apologetic sign on the door. 

“Sorry.  We are closed.  Opening hours 10-4.”

Why 4?  Why close at the very time when your services are most in demand?  It seems perverse; an act of economic self-destruction as nonsensical as Brexit.  It is like a kebab shop closing before pub chucking-out time.

Cafés.  Surely you could stay open just one hour longer?  One pot of Earl Grey.  It’s not going to take long to drink.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree suffers from caffeine withdrawal.