Your Views

Keep 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!

Type some key words here to search the feedback section

Your e-Mails

Brian Crowley McVities Light Range Review	Hi Nicey & all at NCOTAASD, Excellent review about all those new "Light" bikkies and nice to see you are willing to get down and dirty with some technical details when the occasion calls for it. Down here in Oz we have had outbreaks of so-called "Lite" things generally (not just biscuits) from time to time. Usually they have somewhat reduced fat content, but to compensate they tend to crank up the sugar content to rather frightening levels. Oh, and they might also take the opportunity to emphasise the word "Natural" on the packaging in connection with this. You gave an admirable commentary on the fat aspect of the McVities range but remained curiously silent on their sugar content. As it will probably be some time before we get to see any of the new McVities range, if at all, can you satisfy my curiosity and comment on this? Keep up the good work! BC
	Nicey replies: Hello Brian, Thankfully they didn't appear to ramp up the sugar, which as you point out is often the case in low fat recipes. One thing to bear in mind especially with the Digestive is that the standard biscuit is actually has a far higher fat content than most people suspect. So there is plenty of room for manoeuvre.
James McVities Milk Chocolate Digestive Review	Dear Nicey, Having just read your book, I was concerned that you had kept well clear of the 'which way up' issue concerning the chocolate digestive (and other such biscuits). Having just discovered your website for the first time, I am relieved to learn that there has been some debate on the matter. I have two points to raise on the matter: Why should the top of an ordinary digestive become the bottom when there is a chocolate coating? In my opinion the delay factor of the chocolate reaching your tongue is greatly reduced if they are eaten chocolate side down, and the chocolatey taste sensation prolonged. The business of grip and grasp of said biscuit is merely a diversion: what is important is the eating/tasting experience. To conclude, isn't it about time that the NCOTAASD website took the lead cleared the matter up once and for all? After all, you are the undisputed authority on such matters? The solution is simple: an online trial and survey. Readers should be asked to try eating a chocolate digestive one way up, and then the other; then complete an online form where they might indicate the way up that they have traditionally eaten their chocolate digestive, and their preferred way up based on the trial. If it were agreed that the experience is even better chocolate side down, then you could be responsible for changing biscuit-eating discipline for ever - and perhaps even name the process? It has also occurred to me that there are other edibles out there suffering similar confusion, e.g. how many of us automatically open a packet of crisps so the writing on the bag is the right way up when you are eating them? Do we actually read all the small print on the bag? So why do be bother always opening it at the 'top?' Indeed, when we eat crisps communally at a pub, the packet usually sits flat on a table, and if being able to read the packet were really an issue, in such situations it should be opened at the 'bottom.' My final plea: tasting notes for good everyday teabags (we can tackle Earl Grey etc. at a later date). Buying teabags these days seems to be like tip-toeing through a mine-field. There was a time when Sainsbury's Red Label was the answer - sadly those days are long since gone. Yorkshire teabags are not as good as they used to be, even though Taylors claim that they do not change, and even blend according to which region of the UK they are destined for. I wonder if any readers have discovered Punjana teabags which are blended in Belfast? I am happy to assist with these tasting notes. Yours, James
	Nicey replies: Hello James, When we polled people as to the right way up for chocolate biscuits we had 582 votes, 86.08% thought choc side up 8.25% were with you and 5.67% seemed to think it didn't matter. Perhaps a few of the 86% can be convinced to try them 'inverted', but we did have reports of some people trying that last time we talked about it. They said it felt disturbing. As for tea, I notice that like ourselves you live in Cambridge and so maybe you might want to consider some form of water filtration for our grim old tap water before you start worrying what is or isn't happening to teabags. It might buy you a big margin of tea improvement, our kettle thread had lots of messages from people saying it had really worked for them.
Chris Bowen	Hello Nicey Well, I registered for the newsletter but never got a chance to exhibit my knowledge (or lack of) of PG Tips tea bags. Something wrong somewhere in the interweb? Chris Bowen
	Nicey replies: Whoops. You can now. Just login here, click on the answer and hit save.
Molly Flatt McVities Light Range Review	Dear Nicey, First time I have mailed – but , ah, your website brightens my life like an all-chocolate KitKat finger. Whether that’s a reflection on NCOTAASD or my life… well. Anyway. I was absolutely forced to address the emergence of these low fat biscuits. All I can say is… IT’S A BISCUIT. If you want to look like Gillian McKeith go and have a sprout with your tea (which would most definitely be of the brilliantly classified blanket ‘unproper’ variety anyway, although probably something along the lines of fennel and rare bileberry). Why exactly you would want to look like a wizened vending-machine teabag anyway is questionable, but judging by the obviously hitherto-repressed little jets of vitriol bursting up here I think I’d better leave it at that. Once again. It’s a biscuit. Come on, nation. Let them have their naughtiness. Let something be full fat, full danger, full fun. It’s a sad day when choosing a standard-calorie garibaldi becomes a sign of recklessly antisocial pro-obesity-and-social-downfall derring-do. Up the biscuits. Molls xx
	Nicey replies: I find them interesting because they are a bit different eating wise.
Andrew Hawksworth	Nicey and Wifey, I feel I must at once comment on your picture of a mug of tea on the home page under the heading 'Lovely Tarts'. Call that tea?? The colour is of the stuff served up in a back street transport cafe. It should have a depth of colour that tells the drinker that he/she is about to drink a premium Assam, not a supermarket own brand. Also i have to remark on the amount of milk that has been used, i guess at least 25ml by the colour. It should surely be no more than 10ml-15ml. I trust that you will be putting this right, and that it is just a temporary erring on an otherwise excellent web site. Yours Flt Cmmdr Andrew Hawksworth (rtd)
	Nicey replies: I could cope with a bacon doorstep and a mug of back street transport cafe tea right now. As for the tea, well you obviously like yours a bit different to ours, although I admit the lighting on that shot makes it look a tad milky.
	<< Previous | More >>