Tim Hughes brews up and enjoys a cuppa with the king of the mix tape Mr Scruff.

IF there’s one thing that gets Mr Scruff excited, it’s tea.

More than just a favoured pick-me-up, the mighty brew is something of an obsession for this musical adventurer.

“Ooh… tea! Mmm!” he sighs.

“It’s brilliant. Like most Brits, I especially love English breakfast tea – nice and strong with milk, although I do like other teas, and herbal infusions – although that’s a rubbish word.”

The eccentric Ninja Tunes DJ’s love of a good cuppa is apparent as soon as you walk into his shows – where his subtly lit mobile tea stand is a popular fixture at venues, which he transforms for his nights.

“There is no reason why we should be denied the best drink of the day, simply because it’s night time,” he says, by way of explanation, talking to me at his home in Stockport, where he is “going through records” for this weekend’s gigs.

“And I’m a control freak – or maybe just a freak. I want people who come into the venue to experience a different ambience to one that they normally associate with it, and that generally means making the venue as dark and cosy as possible. And serving tea.”

Pots of Darjeeling and Ceylon, aside, Mr Scruff’s main love is music. All music. Almost.

His eclectic club nights and albums Keep it Unreal, Trouser Jazz and the marine-influenced Ninja Tuna (get it?) celebrate the art of flinging together as many diverse strands as possible.

Throwing together blues, Two Tone, ska, electro, hip hop, soul, house, funk, jazz, reggae and what he calls “nasty pop music”, his sets never fail to leave crowds grinning, as punters at previous Mr Scruff nights in Oxford will testify.

The Scruffy one – aka Andy Carthy returns to the city’s O2 Academy next Friday with his Keep it Unreal club night.

Scruff’s love of chopping up and mixing tunes goes back to his childhood – at the age of eight in 1983, at home in Macclesfield, on the fringes of his beloved Peak District – when he began making up tapes of pretend radio shows. That was followed by a flirtation with drum machines, and, by the age age of 13, playing in mates’ bands.

In the meantime Scruff – a keen hill walker – became a part-time fine art student at university in Sheffield, and then a shelf stacker.

“I spent the early 90s doing a part time degree and working at Kwik Save,” he says. “It definitely made me appreciate what I’m doing now!”

He began Djing in clubs – where he’d enlighten crowds with music they simply hadn’t heard before, while projecting his distinctive rounded “potato-style” cartoons on to screens.

“I spend a lot of time record shopping,” he explains, when I ask him where he finds his tunes. “After 25 or so years of hoovering up vinyl, you develop a sixth sense.

“The cartoons, meanwhile, add a cheeky edge to my music and DJ sets. I have drawn cartoons since childhood, and my style hasn’t changed much since then. But anything that makes people smile when they’re on a night out is a good thing.”

And how did he choose his self-efacing moniker? “I had to quickly think of a name, after I’d finished my first single,” he recalls. “Liam, the engineer, asked me what I was going to call myself, as he had to write the session details on the DAT tape. I thought for a minute and said ‘Mr Scruff’.”

And it has stuck. As has his penchant for playing unfeasibly long sets, which frequently extend to more than six hours.

Though one party in Spain took the biscuit, he explains. “I played for 12 hours at a beach party in Barcelona a few years back. The police stopped the party after two hours, so we had to cart all the equipment to an outdoor bar on a nearby campsite, and then carried on until everyone passed out at about 10am. Phew!”

So what can we expect from his Oxford show?”

“I DJ all night, and play all kinds of music, including funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, disco, house, dubstep, Latin, Afrobeat and other good stuff. We have the lights down low, tea on tap, and an amazing friendly atmosphere.”

What's not to like?

Mr Scruff plays the Oxford O2 Academy next Friday. Tickets are £11. Get yourself in the mood by enjoying an ethical cuppa, from his online tea suppliers Make Us a Brew at makeusabrew.com (his teabags are also available from Selfridges and some branches of Waitrose).