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 |
Ian Bradley |
Dear Nicey,
As a recent discoverer of your excellent site, I am now often to be found browsing in that 10 minutes of 'no mans time' between the end of my lunchtime cup of tea and the beginning of that nagging feeling that I ought to get on with some work.
Here's a thing - I read lots of correspondence on Earl Grey, including of course the 'is milk so wrong debate' - but at home when a teapot's worth of team is made, we often enjoy a combination of Earl Grey and another tea. It's usually three teabags, comprising Typhoo (or another fruity strong kind of tea, Tescos premium is quite nice) and Earl Grey, in a two to one ratio. Works great for us - not overpowered by the bergamot smell, but just a hint of it, and carried by a strong enough tea 'taste platform' that drinking it with milk isn't a terrible sin.
I know all those 'loose tea or death' afficionados will be grinding their teeth at this, but I wondered if any other readers had favourite blends or combinations.
By the way, we have one of those teapots with an in-built plastic strainer, so you can lift the teabags out once the right strength of brew has been reached - very handy. And we've also started drinking green Chinese tea (it comes in a green cardboard cylinder, 'Clipper' is the brand I think) as a pre-bedtime brew, seems to have a nice soothing effect, albeit not very compatible with biscuits - any others share that experience?
Sorry for combining so many topics in one posting, I don't know what that does to the icon count. |
Nicey replies: Not a problem that simply registers a cup of tea icon. |
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Oliver Grimshaw
Rich Tea Review |
I've just read Phil's review of the Rich Tea and whilst I agree with his views generally, I think he fails the define the appeal of this mild and soothing biscuit.
I think of Rich Teas as part of a family of 'Base Biscuits'; like Digestives and Nice Biscuits they are a just baked dough, whose taste is unmasked by jam-fillings, chocolate or any other frivolities. The popularity of 'Base Biscuits' is testiment to British sobriety, and a simple appreciation of a quality baking.
Nice biscuits can be watery and mean, and in the wrong mood, a digestive can seem and harsh clumsy with it's coarse grain and heavy-crumbage. But a Rich Tea occupies the area in-between; where it's creamy and buttery, and where a one second dip ensures a squishy coating around a still-super-crunchy centre.
When it comes to a cup of tea and a sit down, if I'm feeling crazy I'll have a Gingernut or even a Jammie Dodger - but the Rich Tea will always be MY 'Base Biscuit'!
Olly, Guernsey
PS. No offense Phil - it's just that Rich Teas have gotten me through some hard times! |
Nicey replies: I actually think that the rich tea is a good bit 'baser' than the Digestive and even the grotty old Nice biscuit, and that Phil did a good job on them. Still very pleased to hear of your affection for what is after all a highly technical biscuit, a fact which people often forget. |
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Patrick Grabham
Tunnocks Wafer Review |
Just a thought Nicey.
If you put all the 4 million odd wafers that Tunnocks produce each week end to end, where exactly would it take you? I know it's Friday afternoon and I really should be doing some work instead of browsing around your wonderful website, but it's got me wondering.
Yours
Patrick, Ealing |
Nicey replies: I make it approximately 230 miles working back from my how many Tunnocks wafers to reach the moon calculations. So yes it potentially would take you 230 miles away from where you are now or nearly twice round the M25. |
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Darwin McCullough |
hey there!
love the site, especially the rave reviews of all things Tunnocks.
Have today had the best biscuit ever. This is the biscuit that Choco-Leibnitz should have been.
Marks and Spencer Extremely Chocolatey Biscuit Rounds. £1.29 for a pack of 8, 6.5g of fat per biscuit...and it's all worth it. Come in either white or milk chocolate...and they are smothered in creamy chocolate! Shaped something like a trivial pursuit piece...they are easy to grip and require at least two bites to devour. But oh, the chocolate to biscuit ratio is perfect..you gotta try them.
Kind Regards,
Darwin mccullough |
Nicey replies: I think this is one of the Fox's Creations range doing a stint for M&S, expect to see it turning up in any number of Christmas selection tins very soon. I think off the top of my head that the chocolate to biscuit ratio on them is up in the 4:1 or even 5:1 area as opposed to say the 3:7 of a McVities Chocolate Digestive. Personally I think that's a bit too much, but they obviously have got you well on side. |
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Mark Pennington
Tunnocks Wafer Review |
Dear Nicey,
I recently rediscovered the Tunnocks Wafer. This opens up many a conversation. Is a Tunnocks Wafer a biscuit (in my opinion, yes) and have any other readers rediscovered biscuits that have been long forgotten?
On the packaging of the Tunnocks Wafer is the remarkable statistic that 4,000,000 are made weekly. I left school and moved from Elgin in the NE of Scotland in 1994 and via various countries have found myself in London. I have not had a Tunnocks Wafer since then. Who is getting my share?
By my calculations the population of the country is 60,000,000 and 2,080,000,000 made since I last had one. I have therefore missed out on almost 35 Tunnocks Wafers. Whilst this may not sound a lot, try laying them down end to end and munching through them in one sitting. I did.
Mark
P.S. Love the site. Keep up the good work. |
Nicey replies: Mark,
We have pondered this question several times in the past. We recently heard that you can get Tunnocks wafers in some parts of the Caribbean, which just shows that its not a simple issue about where they all go. I wonder if even Mr Tunnock himself knows. Perhaps they could fit some with satellite tracking, and get one of those big Bond villain maps of the world, with little lights on it. Obviously Scotland would be fairly bright. |
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