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 |
Penelope Reid |
Dear Nicey,
I have a much treasured and loved teaspoon which came free (after collecting tokens) from Tetley many many moons ago. It is possibly the most aesthetically pleasing spoon that has ever been and ideal for using as a measuring device when baking, in addition to stirring lovely cups of tea. As a person who frequently moves home I have taken to carrying it in my handbag during moves! I plan to commission a full canteen of cutlery to accompany it when I become a squillionaire. Incidentally, as a six year old, I found a teaspoon on a beach in Rimmini, Italy. I still have it and it is my second favourite spoon because of the fond memories attached to it. Is this a worrying personality defect?
Yours
Lady Pen
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Nicey replies: Now we know why some ladies require such big handbags. I think your holiday spoon sounds even more lovely than your Tetley spoon so you shall have a bucket and spade icon too. |
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Zoe Healey |
Dear Nicey
With regards spoons, as I am one of those very annoying people who prefers to have a very small amount of sugar in their tea, I am often receiving gifts of very small spoons (e.g. those Italian ones for espresso) from those who find my description of 1/3 of a teaspoon or ¼ of a heaped teaspoon too complicated.
Small spoons are really good for avoiding too much sugar in the tea (yuck), but require a scientific ‘edge of chaos’ stirring technique in order to create enough turbulence to actually stir a nice large cuppa.
So my former colleague’s technique of dipping a tea-dampened ordinary teaspoon into the sugar halfway down its bowl and then stirring my tea with it has to win (as long as no dampness is left in the sugar of course).
Yours, DrZ |
Nicey replies: Hoorah, thanks for getting us off to a good start by bringing in chaos theory in to the discussion.
Stephen our ISP has one of those annoying small teapoons for his sugar. He also compounds the problem by quite happily drinking his tea without sugar if there isn't any.
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Phil
Leafy Pie and Green Tea Pocky Review |
Hi Nicely & Co.
1) Perhaps what you have stumbled across with respect to the quince/green tea Pocky is that curious phenomena where an entire population turns a blind eye to the fact that something doesn't taste like it should. For example, in the Western world, we often have strawberry or banana flavour (as opposed to flavoured) products. I can't say I've ever honestly thought they taste like strawberries or bananas. All strawberry flavour products taste the same, so we have clearly agreed in some collective way, that it is the official artificial flavour.
You may have discovered the Japanese official pretend green tea flavour, without having been socially conditioned into believing it yet.
2) Perhaps the chap who thinks a Twix is a biscuit would do well to consider the caramel digestive by way of comparison. In the general taxonomy of sweet things, it's undupitably in the biscuit genus, partly due to the biscuit ratio, and partly through family ties. Also, isn't there a more fully biscuit version of the Twix? Possibly discontinued now, I'm not sure. Then again, consider the Viscount and chums. Or that thing from Fox's, which was under 50% biscuit.
I can dunk my finger into tea. Does that make my finger a biscuit? No, it does not.
Phil (of the Destrooper biscuit review) |
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Ben Skerry |
I'm terribly sorry if this has been asked before, but Twix has been the cause of myriad arguments in my flat. I insist it is a chocolate bar, but my flatmate is adamant that it's a biscuit, for the simple reason that you can dunk it in tea. Surely this is not the only criterion on which it is decided?
Please can you let me know your judgment in this case? She just won't listen to reason!
Yours sincerely,
Ben |
Nicey replies: The Twix does have a piece of biscuit inside it, which gives it a much better claim on being a biscuit than the fact that it can be immersed in tea. However it stalks around in the outer reaches of the Venn Diagram in the union of chocolate bars and chocolate covered biscuits. As such it has a foot in both camps, but its heritage is that of confectionary rather than biscuit, so I'm more than inclined to place it with its confectionary stable mates such as the Mars bar and Malteser.
Actually somebody asked last week if Maltesers were biscuits and I didn't grace them with such a long reply.
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Julie Wyman
Leafy Pie and Green Tea Pocky Review |
Dear Mr Nicey,
I just thought that you'd like to know what the flavour of those pretzelly things actually is. Verily it is not quince, but rather that old Japanese favourite - green tea!
I do in fact reside in the land of bonkers, have done for nigh on seven years now, and I still find myself being surprised by anything and everything!
Julie Wyman
PS Loved your book. FANTASTIC!!
PPS I write my own blog about Japan, and about tea (although sadly the latter is in Japanese, ganbatte! = good luck!)
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Nicey replies: Hello Julie,
I have had green tea before but I don't think it can have been the same stuff as the Japanese are using, as the Pocky didn't rekindle any latent memories of it. I'll stick with Quince as the nearest thing in my personal experience but may be try and get hold of some proper green tea, if nothing else to see how near to mark or far off of it these Pocky are. |
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