Boom!
We’re now a travel blog!

My partner and I went home for the holidays and after all the Christmas market bacchanal we decided to get a nice cup of calming tea. Since we were at the centre of Köln one of the main places to visit would be Café Reichard, so we decided to go.

I am very easily tempted by sweets, and upon entering the cafe you are immediately in front of a gorgeous display of cakes, cookies and chocolates. Very dangerous indeed! You can’t purchase them at the counter though if you’re sitting in, so that is safe enough. When you finally manage to tear yourself away from the cakes you enter the seating area.

This place is very big and very busy. You can just seat yourself, and we got a nice little booth.
The seating is also where the problems arise with this place: it’s not very relaxing. There is a constant flux of people coming in and leaving, and because the hall is quite large the noise level gets a bit oppressive.

They did have a pianist and violinist who were very good, and live music always creates a nice atmosphere.
Afternoon tea is not really a part of German culture, where instead you would have Tee (or Kaffee) und Kuchen, or tea and cakes. Also Germans are very good at baking, so Tee und Kuchen is definitely recommended!

After lots of Christmas markets and other tourist stuff had kept us busy, I decided to go for a nice soothing white tea. Their selection is not very large, so they had only one – but it was delicious. Their Sachertorte was also very yummy.

All in all, this is quite a touristic place, and coming here expecting a relaxing tea experience would be wrong. That said, their teas and cakes are good, and the whole interior combined with the live music makes it deliciously tongue-in-cheek pompous. One thing I would definitely recommend is to go to the bathrooms, they’re very classy and high tech. For example, the stall doors are see-through – until you lock the door, when they turn opaque. An odd thing to point out in a cafe review I imagine, but someone put a lot of effort and money in it and that person deserves a raise. Or at least cake.