Teapod, Shed Thames, London

As you can tell from the name, Teapod in London's Shad Thames is more of a tea shop than a coffee shop but they do do coffee too although if you are going to go there you may as well go for the tea experience.

It's easy to forget that, before Costa and Starbucks took over every corner in the land, Britain was know as a nation of tea drinkers. We are still the world's largest consumers of tea per head - drinking some ten times as much as the Americans.

Now that coffee is all-trendy, tea has a bit of a fusty image. All paper doilies, little old ladies, and floral tea shops. Teapod is the exact opposite of all of that. It's bright (bright green in this case), airy, room and serves a huge selection of teas in a variety of different forms. They take their tea seriously, you get fresh leaves and each tea is timed to perfection (which can incidentally be a bit of a problem if you are in a hurry). Tea properly done can be a bit of an acquired taste and if you're used to chai lattes from Starbucks then you'll be in for a bit of a shock.

The food also all feels and looks fresher than the stuff you get from rivals' too which is a bonus.

The only slight downsides are that the furniture is not designed for lingering and relaxing with the papers which is a shame and that it's a little on the dear side. I hope it does well because I would like an alternative to starbucks but I would also like them to buy a sofa or two!