The Little Soap Candle Company

A lovely little surprise along the NC500! A beautiful little shop with wonderful smelling candles and soaps etc, even lovely products for pooches!! Out the back is a beautiful little tea room, with tasty cakes and coffees. Great service, dog friendly and very reasonably priced. When people tell you to spend locally along the route, this is what they mean!! It’s a must!!

Thankful to find them after hours of driving. Excellent signage along the way. When you walk in it smells amazing because of the candles and handmade soaps, They have a variety of products that you would want to buy them all, so we took the opportunity to buy a couple of gifts for the family. Also as the name says they have a secret tea garden, so pretty, you can even hear the birds singing. It was a very relaxing time and you can have a cup of tea and a scone, although they also have cakes and savories. It is very cozy, the staff is very friendly, and there is a cat that comes to you to say hello. It was a very nice stop in the small town of Drumbeg.

The Secret Tea Garden has a lovely environment and friendly staff. However, this was spoilt by the ‘fast food franchise experience’. You order the prepacked food (in plastic and cardboard) at the counter and then have it placed at a collection point. Such a pity. It also seems very short-sighted to use single use items even if these are compostable. It was not made clear if the large amount of plastic material used is compostable. Compostable materials can release harmful substances when breaking down not to mention the resources and energy used to create them. Completely unnecessary in a small tea room when plates and cups can easily be reused.

I was disappointed after reading other good reviews. It 's true that the garden was pleasant, the service courteous and cafe cat a sweetie. But my wife and I assumed that a village cafe would have a toilet. The Secret Tea Garden does not have one. The waitress directed me to a public toilet 5 minutes walk away. I am in my 70s and could not reach the public toilet in time, resulting in real embarrassment and discomfort for me. In short, I had 'an accident '. Please make it clear on your website and on signage at the entrance door that no toilet is provided. Turning to environmental impact, every food item was provided in containers or wrappings that created rubbish even the butter and jam for my scone. The plate and cup were also single use. It 's not good enough now to argue that some or even all of the rubbish was recyclable or compostable. In such a small cafe real plates and mugs could be used and small amounts of butter and jam could be served in reusable containers. These are the reasons why I rated the cafe 'poor ' and will not recommend it to my friends unless these issues are addressed.

A rainy day on our NC 500 trip by motorcycle! Stopped at the viewpoint at Drumbeg and noticed the Secret Tea Garden sign I do love a candle as well) so we popped in and where not disappointed! Lovely green tea, scone ,coffee and cake in a peaceful leafy setting even nice when damp. Lovely candles soaps etc as well really made my day on a long wet ride.