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 |
Tim
Abbey Crunch Review |
I am appalled by the whole Abbey Crunch de-listing, and reminds me of the sadness I felt when our local TOPS supermarket in Bangkok stopped selling M&S Bourbons.
But I was wondering if it's not just a result of the UK populations' general nosedive into the development of a very short attention span and the need for re-branding and flashy marketing to make them reach for those bics off the shelf.
So McVities could:
1. rename Abbey Crunch to something like 'abbey' (as in National)
2. Put some random hyrogliphics in - like Abb>y Cr*nch
3. That's it.
As for people complaining they will be devastated by the loss, just think of us out here in Thailand where we have to put up with a slew of mediocre japanese sugary pieces of tat. Use your right to vote by purchasing the biscuits you claim to love! Or just buy them and post them out here :-)
Tim.
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Jonathan Dean |
Dear Nicey
Following on from the current flurry of vending machine emails I thought people might be interested to hear the latest in vending machine developments over here in Japan.
As many people know Japan is renowned for people working long hours with unwavering dedication to their company and its leaders. This company culture leads people to work 12 to 15 hour days five or more days a week. The end result of this is that a good 30% of people on the train are asleep at any one time. This is a country in clinical need of caffeine, but with little time to drink it.
The Japanese solution to this? Canned tea and coffee of course! Yes! Walk up to any vending machine in Japan (there are 5 million of them at the last count, one for every 24 people or so!) and you will be presented with a selection of canned hot and cold drinks. Drop in 100 yen, about 60p sterling, and out drops a steaming hot can of "Royal Milk Tea" or "Mountain Roast Coffee" in a can.
'Sacrilege!' some may cry! But when you are standing on the platform at Kita Ickibukruo station waiting for the next train to Shibuya, the freezing winds of Western Russia streaming through your overcoat, the hot can vending machine yards away stops being a object of disgust and transforms into an oasis of comfort and warmth. The products in these machines are usually very sweet and slightly clinical, lacking the character and depth of a good, strong, cup of tea, but when there is little else on offer they do fulfil the need for tea.
So do you think this could ever catch on in the west? If you could be sure of a satisfying drink of tea from a can would you buy it? Or is tea too complex a drink to be mass produced in a factory in the back end of nowhere? |
Nicey replies: It all sounds delightfully cyber-punkesque. Hoorah for the Japanese and their hatstand ideas.
Gratuitous link to Oolong the sadly departed head performance rabbit. |
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Tina Hayes |
I'd like to tell you all about a nice box of chocolate cream wafers I was given last week by my boss. He'd been sent them by a colleague in Japan (in a box of rock samples, but luckily only a few of the wafers were crushed). They are called 'Chocolate Collon' which sounded so much like the part of the intestine reserved for biscuit digestion that he just couldn't face them.
I can report that inside the box were 6 individual packets, each containing ten inch-long crispy wafer tubes filled to the brim with creamy chocolatey goodness. The chocolate was more of a praline, but very good nonetheless. They went very well with a short sharp espresso in the morning.
We have a vending machine too (Klix) which does a good tea, a very poor coffee (like rainwater), and the soups would be ok if there was a device for stirring the inch of sludge at the bottom of the cup.
yours
Tina Hayes
Southampton University (Oceanography Centre) |
Nicey replies: Its a good job the rocks didn't smash them all. We'll have to let Ace biscuit hunter Jonathan Dean know as he is in Japan right now.
Horrah for the Japanese and their unfortunate product names! |
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Andy Kite |
Firstly may i congratulate you on having possibly the most informative and helpful website on the whole internet, since being introduced to the site around two months ago i have been regularly visiting to check for any updates on the international biscuit front. My dad has just got back from Austria and i was quite happily getting on with the presents he bought for me (namely some liquer and some rum chocolate) when all of a sudden when unpacking his bag a small bag of assorted biscuits fell out. i immediately swooped like an austrian golden eagle on an unsuspecting mouse to sample this foreign teatime delight.
the biscuit manufacturers are "Weese" and the assortment is called "New Festival" in ridiculously swirly practically indecipherable writing, which should have been a good clue as to what lay in wait inside the pack. Frankly the wafers were far too cardboardy, i prefer a subtle balance between moisture and cardboard in any wafer/waferwannabe, the shortbread left a slightly sickly taste and thick gooey residue around the gums and the chocolate is that crap continental stuff which tastes like it will give you a headache, The date on the bag is 1763 and i first took this to mean the company start date not being a big reader of the german language, but in retrospect i can only think this is the date of manufacture. I think that the manufacturers are a hopeful bunch selling in bags of 500g after one purchase i wouldn't go back unless i had run out of dog biscuits All in all one to be avoided which is disappointing as i generally enjoy sampling the exotic delights of our European fellows.
Once again the site is fantastic keep it up, and good luck with the Anzac biscuit i have been keeping my eyes peeled for a pack.
Yours as a faithful biscuit muncher
Andy Kite
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Amy Walters |
I actually have a couple of questions.
The first question is a home baked "chocolate chip cookie" called a biscuit in your land or is it a cookie.
The second thing is marshmallow biscuits. I think you should do an international review.
Here in America we have ...
- a cookie called a mallowmar which is similar to your Tunnocks tea cake.
- a Pinwheel which is the same a the above in the shape of a miniature bundt cake.
- a Whoopie pie which is 2 big sort of squishy oat based cookies sandwiching a layer of marshmallow cream.
In Israel there is a cultural tradition that surrounds the marshmallow cookie (biscuit)
In the summer all the makollet (corner stores) sell ice cream... Magnum bars, prepared cones etc. but in the winter it's too cold for ice cream so they turn to what is called a Crembo (that's a transliteration.) I think they have imitations too but they come in vanilla and chocolate (marshmallow cream that is - not frosting.
Cheers!
Amy |
Nicey replies: Amy,
Yes we call chocolate chip cookies the same as that is basically an American genre, also it would mess up the alliteration if we changed it.
Thanks for the info about mallow biscuits, unfortunately I don't know what a 'bundt cake' is, so I'll assume its like a cake version of the Pinwheel.
The 'Whoopie Pie' sounds like an out of control Kimberly.
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