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Dave Serjeant	I found your site after it was mentioned in the bulletin of the UK Online User Group. I too have thought for quite a long time that dark mugs make bad tea and consequently only ever use them for coffee. Something to do with the heat not being reflected back into the tea, I always thought. Also, the thinner the walls of the mug, the better as it absorbs less heat energy.   I wonder if anyone can help me track down a mug. I noticed on your "Personal Mug Awareness Week" article a picture of a 'Jar Jar Binks' mug from Star Wars Episode One. The first ever present I ever bought for my girlfriend (now wife) six or so years ago, was a 'Yoda' mug from the same series. This mug was very special to her and nine times out of ten, she would drink from it, even if it meant digging it out from a hundred weight of washing up to give it a rinse.   Unfortunately I totalled said mug a couple of years back, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil (I was raiding a jar of chocolate spread from the top of a kitchen cupboard when a tin of beans fell out and landed on the unfortunate drinking vessel) and the manufacturer, Downpace, don't seem to make them anymore. I think she's forgiven and forgotten a long time ago, but I would really like to bring her a morning cup of tea in a replacement Yoda as a surprise on our wedding anniversary next year. If you or anyone else can help me track one of these down in the meantime, I will be forever in your debt.   Great site, by the way, and one of the best URL's I have seen for a long time.
	Nicey replies: That's a charming story of mug affection. Good luck finding a Yoda.
Ivory Fishbone	nicey... have you ever debated cup size? sorry to bang on about it if you already have debated it ... but it's a subject dear to my heart and i am a Quite New member of niceetc. and not really up to speed... (though am very interested by the tea bag bin) i was raised in a tea leaf house ... there was no compromise ...there was pot warming ... there was perfect brewing time .... there was milk first and it was all done in bone china ... (cup and saucer, some with gold rims) ... my mother is still a bone china fanatic but since i have shucked off the parental traces i have "gone over" to the other side... i do brew in a cup with a tea bag and put the milk in afterwards (and i am NOT ashamed of it) .... anyway i am sure these are old arguments much worn by your stalwarts ... i think what horrifies my mother more than anything is my preference for drinking my tea out of "buckets" or as she sometimes calls my big cups "the po"...i think tea (PG natch) tastes much better from a large (up to a pint) sized earthenware drinking vessel ... for me it is a matter of comfort ... nothing beats sitting with a big cup in your two hands ... titchy bone china that you can't even get your finger through the handle ... PAH! anyway ... i like your site ... it's very nice.... i once followed a link from it to some Spam Sculpture and was nearly hospitalised with mirth ... yours most teafully ivory fishbone
Mark Greenwood	Nicey, I'm new to your site but reading Jim Fussel's question about the colour of the mug affecting the quality of the tea reminded me of an experiment I did quite some time ago, before I had a life, to investigate this very phenomenon. Being a true scientist, I didn't keep any notes so what follows is from memory. Basically I reasoned that water temperature is crucial to the proper brewing of tea so if the colour of the mug had an effect on the water temperature then this might be a possible explanation for the "dark mug makes bad tea" phenomenon. As I'm sure we all know from school physics, a dark body (or mug) will radiate heat better than a light coloured mug (the so-called 'black body radiation'). So when we pour boiling water into a mug, it will cool down faster if that mug is darkly coloured. To prove this I pointed an infra-red thermometer at the outside of a white mug and a black mug while I brewed some tea. After a regulation brewing period the thermometer measured that much more heat was being given off by the black mug. Investigation of the water temperature inside the mug revealed that the water in the black mug was about 3 degrees cooler than the water in the white mug. So my theory was correct - the black mug allowed the water to cool down faster. Whether this actually makes any difference to the quality of the tea I have no idea, but it sure sounds plausible. As I recall, further investigation was hampered by the fact that I now had two mugs of tea in front of me and therefore it was necessary to go and have two sit downs, by which time the urge for discovery had left me. Mark
Dan Pawley McVitie's Lyles Creams Review	Evening, I read on your site about your fondness for the Lyons logo, and thought you may be interested in the story behind it. As with so many things, it's all to do with the Romans. Although they were very good at building straight roads and conquering and stuff, they were rather backward when it came to agriculture. They believed that if you were keeping bees and lost your swarm, all you had to do was kill some sort of large animal (usually a bullock) and leave it for a bit, and then a new swarm of bees would generate inside it's rotting carcass. You can read the whole story in Virgil's fourth Georgic. If you want to. tata dan
	Nicey replies: Dan, I thought you were going to tell me it was from the Bible again, which of course we know. Most people who like to tell us its from the Bible never actually make it to the review where we mention that, before firing off an email about Samson and the book of Judges. So its good hear a little more constructive thoughts on why you should expect to get Honey from lions. The 'Bible emails' all completely neglect the fact that bees do by and large and almost without exception prefer hollows in trees to rotting animal carcasses as a place to build a hive. The whole Winnie the Pooh thing would have been a lot more grisly if this where not so. I suppose this is a matter of faith by its very nature. For Christians if the Bible says you get honey from lions then you do. No doubt there are strong links between the two. Perhaps some of our South African readers would care to tell us in bee hives in dead lions is something known about in their country.
Giles Strachan	Tea was never meant tobe made with Teabags. The best biscuit tea is Earl Gray. Simply place a pinch of the tea leaves in a seive, place the seive over the mug and add boiling water. The tea should be quite weak and have NO milk and NO sugar which are the tea equivelants of McDonalds and Burger King (no flavour and bad for you). Oh yes, a pinch is between the thumb and forefinger and should be about 6 leaves. The Pedantic Earl Grey Drinker
	Nicey replies: Do you like tea or do like Bergamot oil? I like tea with milk, I'm not keen on after-shave, another use for Bergamot oil, although I did used to know somebody who used to drink aftershave. The chap in question would be sent aftershave by his Aunties who didn't realise that he handn't really shaven for about 4 years. He used to drink he stuff with tonic water, as its mostly alcohol. Dispite his hairy appearence some women found him strangely aluring, depending on what he had drunk and how recently he had burped.
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