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 |
Katy Drummond |
Nicey
I definitely don't want to enter into the dangerous territory of mugs vs cups. It's like dogs vs cats - though dogs are clearly superior beings, you are never going to convince a cat lover of this by rational argument, or any other means for that matter. Some people (normally old people) like cups, the rest of us like mugs, and that's just the way it is. Live and let live, I say.
However, I do have strong views on the colour of the drinking vessel, be it cup or mug. I noted some correspondence earlier in which the author described her favourite mug which bore the legend 'World's Sexiest Woman'. Although she loved the message printed on the outside, she was
understandably distressed by its lurid orange colour.
It is quite obvious to all but the most inexperienced tea drinker that tea must always be drunk out of a vessel that is very pale in colour, preferably white, off-white or cream. Anything else just won't do. It makes your tea look watery and unappetising, black and navy blue being the worst offenders.
While we're on the subject of unappetisiting cups of tea, does anyone else have a view on the 'scum' you get when you leave your teabag in too long? I personally prefer to have a bit of this scum on my tea as it demonstrates that the teabag has not been whipped out too soon. Anyone can make a cup of tea that, judging by the colour, APPEARS to be the right strength, but once
tasted is revealed as watery and insipid. If you've got scum however, you know it's been brewed (or 'mashed' as I believe they say up north) to at least the minimum acceptable level.
I would also like to add that informative and interesting though Jenny Hugh's 12-point list on the superiority of the cup was, it is disingenuous to say that your site is not called nicemugofteaandasitdown, as everyone knows that 'cup of tea' can refer to any drinking vessel that contains tea.
Fair enough on the other 11 points though.
Keep up the good work.
Katie
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Nicey replies: You'll set off Jim Fussell again with all this talk of dark mugs.
Yes why not have a Scum debate, scum dosn't get its fair crack of the whip does it. |
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Lisa Anderton |
Dear Nicey,
And how right you are - tea is enjoyable (and necessary) regardless of the vessel it arrives in.
I am in the habit of drinking copious tea at work, obviously from a mug as I don't have room at my desk for a pot as well, and as my mug is approximately a half pinter, I have no problem dunking anything up to digestive size, which is perfectly adequate.
Perversely I drink coffee at home in a cup as I have a nifty cappuccino thingy, which will only fit a cup underneath, but this is fine as the matching saucer is perfect for balancing those nice Italian stick-like chocolate spread filled wafer things - although questionably a biscuit (?)
Hope that wasn't too much of a rant!
Cheers once again,
Lisa |
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Jenny Hughes |
As a relative newcomer to your site, I have yet to find any reference to the most fundamental debate in the tea drinking world which is the cup vs mug divide. If all has been resolved, then I apologise for opening old wounds but there is a serious shortage of cup and saucer information on a site dominated by mug-gers.
Speaking as one who would have to be really desperate for tea and a sit down before I would even entertain the idea of a mug, (yuk!) I feel I ought to point out the top ten advantages of cups and saucers.
1 Most cups are wider at the top than mugs and accommodate a greater range of dunking biscuits without breaking them in two - which is a really upsetting thing to have to do
2 The narrowing shape of cups stops you dunking the biscuit too far and risking total collapse - the ultimate nightmare
3 Saucers are really handy if your nice cup of tea and a sit down is even better with a cigarette. As you have to wash the saucer anyway, it saves finding an ashtray
4 If you don't smoke, you can balance your biscuits on the saucer (don't try it with chocolate ones)
5 When you break the cup, you can save the saucer, (because it might come in useful one day) until you have about 20 odd ones in the cupboard and then you have always got something to give to the jumble sale
6 Bone china cups are thin and keep the tea hot.
7 Cups can be seriously tarty in a way mugs just can't. My favourite is a 50's pearlised, swirly, peach creation with a gold rim bought for £2 in Ponty market.
8 You get noticeably less tea in a cup which means you can justify having two nice cups of tea and a sit down and two cups equal more than a mug
9 Cups and saucers often come with teapots which are wondrous things and make a cup of tea and a sit down into an occasion. (Watch this space - there will be a follow up outburst on teapots vs teabags-in-a-mug)
10 Cups and saucers get mega brownie points from your Nain (Nan to those outside Wales) and other elderly relatives when they come visiting so that they don't notice the rest of the house is like a tip
11 (Sorry, getting carried away) Quite simply, coffee comes in mugs (and also in jam jars, buckets, plastic beakers and who the hell cares anyway) NOT tea.
12 This site is clearly not called nicemugofteaandasitdown, so you could probably get done under the Trades Descriptions Act unless you provide serious air space for cup-pers as well as mug-gers
Jen from Pontypridd |
Nicey replies: Jenny,
OK, ok, I'll post your cup rant. We really don't care what people drink their tea out of just so long as they are happy.
Be careful now we know where you live we might come round and get a picture of your tarty mug on our next visit to Ponty. We make special trips there once or twice a year for sit down Faggots and Peas.
I shall now brace myself for a torent of mug-counter-rants. |
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Jim Fussell |
Morning Nicey,
I remember in the dim and distant past, we had a small discussion on mugs and the colour of them affecting the tea therein. After my hols i've arrived back at the comfort and safety of ncotaasd to see you are having a discussion on personal mugs. I was wondering if you or anyone else ever got to the bottom of this dark mug phenomenon? The way in which no matter how hard the bag is squeezed or how little milk is applied, the resultant brew is a pale, tasteless affair with a strange film over the top. I was given a mug a while back from my sister which was very smart indeed, a red and blue number. But despite my numerous attempts, a satifying cuppa could never be obtained and so at risk of causing offense I resorted back to the old faithful. Any thoughts? Has anyone ever made a succesful brew in a dark mug?
Regards,
Jim |
Nicey replies: Yes well said Jim, this is an important element in tea presentation isn't it.
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