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

Mary Dobson	I was very pleased to receive your book for christmas, but was very surprised by the idea of people using other people's personal mugs at work. It seemed a shocking idea to me and I was convinced that it was only going on in very hidden, dark corners of England. However, there has recently been a development on this front at work. I have a mug which has a pig on the side and says "The pig smile because he is so happy" and on the other side has a little poem about the pig's happiness reminding us that there is lots to be happy about...It's my Monday morning mug really. Anyway, a colleague came to my desk to speak to me today and I couldn't answer him because I was so transfixed by seeing my mug in his hand, full of tea! And no, he wasn't bringing me a cup of tea, he was using it for himself and had the audacity to tell me that he likes it very much! What should I do about this? Does it follow mug etiquette to suggest that he stops using it or should I accept it gratefully as a compliment to me in my mug choosing skills? Thank you for the brilliant book, and I am sorry for doubting the truth of your mug stealing knowledge. (Also, this website is very good for lovely+silly mugs  ) Mary
	Nicey replies: Mary, No you are going to have to have it out with him. This is such a Friday type of thing to happen. Lulled by the inevitable slow down at the end of the week, his energy levels to find a clean mug have dipped and he has just grabbed the nearest one to hand. Obviously he quite likes it as its clean, full of tea and in his hand. You are already harboring a good bit of resentment already although you appear to be quite polite about the whole thing. If you allow the situation to continue then its just going to gnaw away at you. Eventually you may snap in a fit of mug rage, which is best avoided. I would tell him nicely that he has been fortunate enough to try your mug, but now he needs to sort out his life and get his own mug, and that if you ever catch him using yours again then he'll need to bring you biscuits and make the tea for you for the next year.
Russell Haswell	What with all this discussion of kettles and things........some kettles are designed to rotate on the base so it's good for right and left handers. Well, I observed this to a friend who got all agitated and moaned about mugs having the design so that only right handed people can show off the pattern. I got to thinking that I must be a pretty unusual character because I'm right handed but I would want left handed designs because I'd like to look at the design as I drink. Is this selfish? Or maybe I just want mug satisfaction. We need a campaign for two way mugs so we can get mug satisfaction AND be altruistic by letting other people see too. Russ
	Nicey replies: Yes I'm sure you have raised an important point, I expect. Of course all NCOTAASD mugs look terrific from any angle.
Mark George	Dear Nicey. I received your book at Christmas from my brother and have so far enjoyed reading it. I mainly do so on the toilet! I find the sections just long enough so that I can read one while I do a two. Sorry to be crude but that?s the way it is. There are lots of elements in the book that I strongly agree with and find it reassuring that other people think the same way as myself. However, we certainly do not agree on our tea brewing methods. I can imagine that masses of people have been in touch with you over this issue as it is so controversial. Just in case they haven?t, I feel it is my duty to raise the matter with you. Using one tea bag to brew two cups of tea is utterly ridiculous. I cannot believe that you ?a supposed tea connoisseur, if you will- would stoop to the level of reusing a tea bag. (In these few sentences I will be referring to the brew in the cup method of production) It is a well-known fact that the main infusion takes place in the first few seconds after the boiling water has hit the bag. Trying to achieve this same infusion, in another cup, with the same bag is preposterous. The bag is second hand and should be discarded like a sock with two holes. How can the two cups taste the same? Who gets the secondary cup? What do you do when you are only making tea for yourself? How can you get them finished at the same time? These are all questions that baffle me while I read your book, wondering whether I can trust your opinions on other matters regarding tea. I would have liked this book to be a kind of bible on tea, but I couldn?'t be Christian if I didn'?t agree with God when it comes to his opinion on coveting my neighbours? wife (which I do not covet my neighbours wife but agree with God?s opinion). This may be of no use or interest to you but here it is anyway, my tea brewing method: (for two) Boil thy kettle (freshly drawn water) Place one tea bag in each mug Add water to mugs Let alone for two minutes (no stirring or squeezing), (insure tea spoon is not in mug) Remove the bags with minimal aggravation (I find squeezing causes the tea to taste ?baggy?, as in ?of the bag? Add milk (no sugar) Stir well. Thank you for your time. Hope there are no hard feelings. Mark.
	Nicey replies: As you leave your bag in for two minutes I certainly wouldn't try to make another cup with it. However we only give our bags a matter of 10-15 seconds whilst giving it a bit of a stir, and it works fine for us and a great many others for that matter. As we explained in the book when talking about leaf size in modern tea bags after two minutes a average tea bag in a mug will have begun to stew so unless it is removed exceedingly carefully will release the stewed tea from within, hence the perceived baggy flavour. This is due to the heavier molecular weight tannins which account for this flavour being able to move through the now saturated and hence widely spaced fibers of the cell walls. If the bag were to do this in the context of a teapot then it wouldn't be so much of an issue as it would no doubt be working with more than one mug of boiling water. If somebody were to make a cup of of tea with one of your used two minute bags it would taste awfully stewed, and I certainly wouldn't fancy that. I hope we have arrived at some sort of understanding.
Adam Christmas South East Asian Multireview Review	Hello Nicey, You may be interested to know (if you don't already) that the side of the Tomato Layer biscuits seems to be proclaiming them to be "Tomato Layered Cake" in jauntily dyslexic Japanese kana. This hasn't made me more interested in eating them, although it has given me a slight desire to see a packet of them in the flesh so I can check my reading. I should also tell you how much I enjoyed the book. I got it for Christmas, which I think is the best way to get books, combining as it does getting them for free with the extra time to read them. It made me laugh out loud in the middle of a grim four-hour train journey into London the day after Boxing Day, and there is no higher praise than that I think. Adam
Graham Holliday South East Asian Multireview Review	About the Kinh Do Bakery biscuits you mentioned. They have a website too kinhdofood.com. You're right, they are Vietnamese. I haven't tried the biccies you mention, but living in Vietnam they have a poor rep. as cheap garbage and no-one I know buys them. Korea does slightly better, but not much. Fortunately I have never come across Chinese biscuits. One future tip, I'd steer well clear of Polish biccies if I were you.
	Nicey replies: Actually their website is quite good, and packed with pictures of their biscuits, which my head (and entire alimentary tract led by my taste buds are advising against), where as my heart says 'perhaps'. They would probably have to get me semi lashed up on something first, however, I don't think I could do it sober. Not after the last time. I've only ever had nice Polish biscuits but they have all been made by Bahlsen.
	<< Previous | More >>