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 |
Alison Debenham |
Hi again Nicey, Wifey & etc
All this talk of Tetley tea reminds me of when my younger daughter (at the time aged about 3 or 4) asked me "Mum, is your tea deadly?" I told her it wasn't that bad, but she said, "No, you know, like on the advert, deadly make tea bags make tea". I reassured her that actually, I used tea leaves anyway, so it wasn't deadly at all. Don't you just love the things youngsters come out with? She doesn't tend to come up with such gems now that she's nearly 16! She was very pleased that I bought her one of the PG Tips Gromit mugs though!
All the best, keep up the good work.
Alison |
Nicey replies: Your daughter is a lucky girl to have possession of that Gromit mug, judging by the plaintive emails flooding in here from people desperate to get hold of them. Just in case anybody was wondering, we don't know either. |
| |
Jim Fussell |
Nicey,
You tried the new Tetley's Extra Strong. I'm intrigued. Is it just more tea leaves in the bag or have they done something else? I'm off to Morrisons tonight, I may get some and do some investigative work.
Jim. |
Nicey replies: Morning Jim,
No but I had to have Tetley on the train to London the other day as Terry the bloke with the trolley said that PG have stopped doing plastic train tea. I was mortified.
To my tastes Tetley seem to have access to some pretty strong old tea already so maybe they have just blended a batch for all the teabag squeezers out there who think that you have to wring your teabag bone dry before its done its work. The draw strings on the Tetley bag in my train tea are a testament to Tetley's belief that a teabag should be wrung dry. |
| |
Amber Cooper-Davies
 Fruit Shortcake Review |
I need to learn to drink tea, but so far i find it disgusting without sugar! (my parents say "you shouldn't drink tea with sugar") I have been told that tea-drinking is an essential part of British culture and socialising, and i'm scared that without it I may become an outcast, due to being difficult by asking for orange juice etc. woe is me! (I can make tea in a pot or with a teabag, but I really don't think that's good enough) HOW DO YOU LEARN TO DRINK TEA!?!?!?!?!? |
Nicey replies: Amber,
You simply need to knuckle down and drink lots of tea. What will definitely help are some nice straight forward biscuits, nothing too fancy as you are looking for the tea to play its part in the proceedings, and not be drowned out. I would say try a few fruit shortcakes with your next cuppa and see how you get on. Also it helps if you really need your cup of tea, so I would suggest any number of physical pursuits to get your need for tea increased. Try short bursts of tidying up the house, between 15-30 minutes. This should have you screaming for a cuppa, sugar or not. If this doesn't work then you could always get a job on a building site, or in the NHS where tea drinking tends to part of the training. |
| |
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.
|
| |
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. |
| |
|
|
|