Apothica Teas

I finally had the opportunity to stop this past weekend. I have been to Niles a few times, but have always just missed the open hours. OH MAN. The NICEST people that I have ever met run this place. As a person who struggles with personal interactions, I didn't leave here feeling awkward like I normally do. I didn't feel out of place or unwelcome. I picked up one of your frozen Bangers and Mash (thank you for having something gluten free!) meals that I am hoarding in my freezer for a day that I could really use feeling as happy as I did at Apothica. Between the teas, food, books, handmade goods, and absolutely stellar people- I am dreaming about coming back. I hope everyone there realizes just how big of an impact their kindness has on people. Thank you so so so much for everything. 💕

I hate writing a review like this, but I also think it’s important to give honest feedback, so… here it is! I’ve had a lot of afternoon teas in many different places (it’s one of the things we like to look for in different cities and countries when we travel), and I had been looking forward to going to Apothica Teas for a long time, so maybe my expectations were too high. The good: the food was truly delightful, as was the tea. The scones were delicious, which surprisingly is not always a given at afternoon tea in my experience. I appreciated that we could ask for extra jam or clotted cream without an extra charge. It was fun getting to choose our own tea cups out of their China cabinet, and I loved looking around at the fun tea-related decor and items for sale. It was also great having the option to take my second pot of tea home as dry loose leaf, since I was way too full to drink two full pots. The bad: while this is a reasonably priced afternoon tea, the price point still puts it in the “special occasion” category for us, and we unfortunately felt like the service and atmosphere didn’t meet a special occasion level. The staff were all dressed very casually, mostly in jeans and some in t-shirts, too. The service was ok. Some of the staff were friendly but not super professional, and others seemed frankly indifferent to the presence of patrons. The worst part was when we went to pay, and two of them started having a full on argument in front of my husband at the till. It was my birthday and I really didn’t want it to be ruined by that, so I wandered off to look at the tea for sale while my husband very kindly took care of the bill, but it was very uncomfortable to witness even as an indirect observer. It’s one thing to have a polite disagreement in front of your customers, or even a manager correcting a mistake, but this was not that. This was heated and just short of vicious, enough to make me hesitant to return let alone spend so much money. And after that, when we got home and I looked at the receipt I realized they had overcharged us by adding a gluten-free food option, which we did not order or receive. An unfortunate ending that made something special feel slightly less so. In light of our overall experience, we might be back to Apothica to buy loose leaf tea but I doubt we will return to dine in anytime soon.