East Anglia Back on the juice

Date Published:

12/09/2008

Mark Hastings added the Tree hugging hippy juice bar to the Map saying: "Great food, local meat, biodegradable packaging and awesome smoothies, it's really cool.” I went along for a smoothie and a good portion of my five a day

I find owner, Mark Jenner-Parson, in the tiny kitchen at the back of the shop slowly stirring a chorizo and butter bean stew while keeping a keen eye on the pea and mint soup. "Hmmm, the stew needs another hour at least," he says. An order comes in for two bacon rolls and Mark sets to with the grill.

Mark and Helen

Although he started primarily as a juice bar last year, after seven months Mark and his partner decided to bring the food production in-house to ensure the quality and consistency was right. So there are café favourites, such as cooked breakfasts, paninis, soups and stews. All of which can be washed down with a smoothie for which the café is justly proud.

Smoothly does it

Helen, running the front of house, brings us a selection of the smoothies for us to try. There’s lots of ‘thank you sweetie’ and ‘pleasure darling’ banter between the two of them; in fact I don’t think I’ve seen such a happy polite team in all my travels. But on to the smoothies - there’s blueberry and ginger, which Mark swears is the best cure for a hangover, pineapple carrot and chilli, which has a just the right amount of kick, the bizarre sounding peanut butter and jam, and finally opal fruits which amazingly tastes of opal fruits. “We were experimenting one day, and somehow two flavours got mixed together. I turned to Helen and said ‘this tastes just like Opal Fruits’ and we then spent over an hour figuring out how we’d made it,” says Mark. He won’t tell me what’s in it, however, but there’s lime in there. There’s now something like 20 flavours on the menu for you to try.

A lovely pea blend

This year Mark got to the final of the inaugural UK Smoothie championships but lost in the first round to the eventual winner. Still, he may be back next year. Mark talks me through the art of smoothie making. "The biggest problem with juices is finding your apples; we’re lucky in that we use Cam Valley Orchards who can give us the consistency of supply," says Mark. Then it's just a case of blending complementary and contrasting flavours. "Apples and carrots are cheap, but have a strong earthiness and don’t bring much to the party," he adds.

And with that tip I head back out to do battle with the Cambridge traffic and try to remember where I parked.

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