Dismal sort of tea sold around cafe's rear (8)
I believe the answer is:
desolate
'dismal' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sort of tea sold around cafe's rear' is the wordplay.
'sort of' indicates an anagram.
'around' indicates putting letters inside.
'rear' says to take the final letters (the back of the word).
The last letter of 'cafe' is 'e'.
'tea'+'sold'='teasold'
'teasold' is an anagram of 'dsolate'.
'dsolate' enclosing 'e' is 'DESOLATE'.
(Other definitions for desolate that I've seen before include "Utterly wretched" , "Miserable" , "'Deserted, wretched (8)'" , "Forlorn and abandoned" , "extremely sad" .)