Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Helen Rees |
Dear Nicey,
Interesting to read Emma's note from Tajikstan because when I mentioned Tea Money to my (Welsh) husband the other day he said "Yes, and tea leaves floating in your tea means a visitor to the door." Could it be that when Tea came to Britain first from Asia the customs came with it? |
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James E. Petts |
Dear Sir,
what is the official NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com line on gingerbread men? Cake, biscuit or mere confection?
yours most humbly,
James E. Petts
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Nicey replies: Regarding Gingerbread men, Gingerbread is a cake, despite wanting to be some kind of bread. By association this makes gingerbread men cakes. Certainly the ones baked locally are more cake than biscuit. However I do think that you would really need to make a case by case judgement as recipes vary so much. |
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Janet Ames |
Back in the days when i was a small girl tea came loose in quarter pound packets and not in little bags. Sometimes a rolled tea-leaf would float to the surface in the cup and bob about like a small twig.The person whose cup is was would take a tea-spoon and fish out the tea-leaf.Place it on the top of a chenched fist and hit it smartly with the other fist, also rolled. Chanting "Monday - pause- "Tuesday" -pause and so on until the tea-leaf fell off. The floating leaf meant a letter was on its way and the rest of the ritual was to announce on which day it would arrive.The underlying message was that the promised letter meant goods news or money and never merely the gas bill.
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Tomsk |
Chris Capon talked about "She also refuses to drink the last few sips of tea insisting she's finished
when there is still some left in the bottom of the cup." and many others spoke of family customs relating to tea
Well, my mother-out-law (yes, the mother of my unmarried partner) coined a word for the unpleasant sensation of drinking the last dregs of a cuppa only to find that the strainer hasn't done its job.
The day this happened, she drank down the dregs and immediately made a pinched face and said "nimnimnimnim" So for ever after, the dregs in the bottom of a cuppa are nim-nims.
Anyone else have local or family words associated with a nice cup of tea (or even an unpleasant one - don't get me started on UHT milk...)
cheerio
Tomsk
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Donald Recchia
HobNob Review |
Dear Nicey,
I came across your site about a month and a half ago and found it quite interesting and amusing. You see, I’m American and we usually don’t make such a fuss over cookies, biscuits or what-have-you. Well, I was shopping the other day and came across a box of HobNobs and put it in my cart. A little further down the isle was a box that said ‘Original Chocolate Digestives’ It wasn’t McVities but a Spanish label, anyway, into the cart it went (must have been the Spanish manufacturer since the biscuits were stamped “McVities”). Suffice it to say that I now understand exactly what you are talking about. These were by far the best biscuits I have ever eaten (I’ll call them biscuits even though I know better). I thought that I would get some oatmeal type dry biscuit that would have to be drowned in coffee or milk to enjoy, but quite the contrary they are absolutely delicious dry out of the box. Kudos to you and your website for turning me on to a new taste sensation and a newfound respect for British baking prowess.
Donald Recchia
Madrid, Spain
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Nicey replies: United Biscuits have a acquired a lot of Spanish bakeries in the last few years which explains why Digestives are now turning up in Spain. McVities Chocolate Digestives are the biggest selling biscuit in the UK so its probably a good plan to try and get the rest the world eating them. Who knows one day they might even catch up with Oreo.
Maybe someday we'll even see reciprocal 'biscuit cruises' from the continent to balance out our 'booze cruises' to it. Probably not. |
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