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Your e-Mails

Tom Hutchinson Jammie Dodger Review	Dear Nicey - Thank you for your lovely website.  I have been very much enjoying it on a semi-regular basis. I wonder if you have been doing any research into the 'raspberry-flavoured plum jam' problem which currently afflicts Jammie Dodgers and other biscuit/jam compounds. Raspberry jam is certainly a top jam, so I don't understand why Jammie Dodger manufacturers have to resort to this silly simulacrum.  Maybe they are worried about the presence of those little raspberry bits - like minature embryonic raspberrys.  If you reduce raspberries to a puree then these bits are certainly distracting, but in the context of jam, they present no difficulties.  Equally, I am worried at the thought that raspberry flavoured plum jam might retain some taint of former pluminess.  For indisputably, plum jam does not belong in the folio of classic jams.  But by what method is the plum flavour eradicated?  What would happen if this process was to backfire? Or maybe it is only a question of simple economics.  In which case, my response would be to wait a moment, and then to breathe softly: 'oh dear'.  I have seen Jurassic Park (one and two) and I know you cannot toy with nature for mere financial gain.   I hope you can shed some light on this for me, and many of my concerned friends. Thank you Tom
	Nicey replies: Tom, I covered this one in the review. Its to do with the amount of pectin which is the complex polysaccharide in plant cell walls that sets the jam. Plums and Apples are very rich in it soft fruits such as raspberries don't have so much and strawberries are notoriously low in it. Hence to get really stiff jam capable of holding the two sides of the jamie dodger together Burton's have gone for a plum based jam. However the flavours that people respond to are those of the of soft fruit jams, hence subterfuge.
Brian Barratt	Nicey (Mr), this Amazon announcement is probably years old, but it concerns all of us. The book in question is Milk: The Deadly Poison I picked this up from the IgNobel Prize site.   Barratt (Mr)
	Nicey replies: Just because you like your tea black Barratt (Mr) there is no need to stir up trouble. The milk guy is a bit over zealous. Everything we eat has bacteria in it, bit unfair to lay that one on milk. Luckily we evolved on the same planet as bacteria so we have the means of coping with that. As for growth hormones, well lets leave that to the Americans shall we. Antibiotics and pesticides, well again unfair to single out just milk again on that one, and of course there is now Organic milk freely available. Fat and cholesterol. Yes, its part of our diet, up to the individual to eat sensibly. He didn't mention that you could drown in the milk if you held your head under for long enough, or that being hit by a tanker load of the stuff would be dangerous.
Dave Serjeant	I found your site after it was mentioned in the bulletin of the UK Online User Group. I too have thought for quite a long time that dark mugs make bad tea and consequently only ever use them for coffee. Something to do with the heat not being reflected back into the tea, I always thought. Also, the thinner the walls of the mug, the better as it absorbs less heat energy.   I wonder if anyone can help me track down a mug. I noticed on your "Personal Mug Awareness Week" article a picture of a 'Jar Jar Binks' mug from Star Wars Episode One. The first ever present I ever bought for my girlfriend (now wife) six or so years ago, was a 'Yoda' mug from the same series. This mug was very special to her and nine times out of ten, she would drink from it, even if it meant digging it out from a hundred weight of washing up to give it a rinse.   Unfortunately I totalled said mug a couple of years back, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil (I was raiding a jar of chocolate spread from the top of a kitchen cupboard when a tin of beans fell out and landed on the unfortunate drinking vessel) and the manufacturer, Downpace, don't seem to make them anymore. I think she's forgiven and forgotten a long time ago, but I would really like to bring her a morning cup of tea in a replacement Yoda as a surprise on our wedding anniversary next year. If you or anyone else can help me track one of these down in the meantime, I will be forever in your debt.   Great site, by the way, and one of the best URL's I have seen for a long time.
	Nicey replies: That's a charming story of mug affection. Good luck finding a Yoda.
Ivory Fishbone	nicey... have you ever debated cup size? sorry to bang on about it if you already have debated it ... but it's a subject dear to my heart and i am a Quite New member of niceetc. and not really up to speed... (though am very interested by the tea bag bin) i was raised in a tea leaf house ... there was no compromise ...there was pot warming ... there was perfect brewing time .... there was milk first and it was all done in bone china ... (cup and saucer, some with gold rims) ... my mother is still a bone china fanatic but since i have shucked off the parental traces i have "gone over" to the other side... i do brew in a cup with a tea bag and put the milk in afterwards (and i am NOT ashamed of it) .... anyway i am sure these are old arguments much worn by your stalwarts ... i think what horrifies my mother more than anything is my preference for drinking my tea out of "buckets" or as she sometimes calls my big cups "the po"...i think tea (PG natch) tastes much better from a large (up to a pint) sized earthenware drinking vessel ... for me it is a matter of comfort ... nothing beats sitting with a big cup in your two hands ... titchy bone china that you can't even get your finger through the handle ... PAH! anyway ... i like your site ... it's very nice.... i once followed a link from it to some Spam Sculpture and was nearly hospitalised with mirth ... yours most teafully ivory fishbone
Mark Greenwood	Nicey, I'm new to your site but reading Jim Fussel's question about the colour of the mug affecting the quality of the tea reminded me of an experiment I did quite some time ago, before I had a life, to investigate this very phenomenon. Being a true scientist, I didn't keep any notes so what follows is from memory. Basically I reasoned that water temperature is crucial to the proper brewing of tea so if the colour of the mug had an effect on the water temperature then this might be a possible explanation for the "dark mug makes bad tea" phenomenon. As I'm sure we all know from school physics, a dark body (or mug) will radiate heat better than a light coloured mug (the so-called 'black body radiation'). So when we pour boiling water into a mug, it will cool down faster if that mug is darkly coloured. To prove this I pointed an infra-red thermometer at the outside of a white mug and a black mug while I brewed some tea. After a regulation brewing period the thermometer measured that much more heat was being given off by the black mug. Investigation of the water temperature inside the mug revealed that the water in the black mug was about 3 degrees cooler than the water in the white mug. So my theory was correct - the black mug allowed the water to cool down faster. Whether this actually makes any difference to the quality of the tea I have no idea, but it sure sounds plausible. As I recall, further investigation was hampered by the fact that I now had two mugs of tea in front of me and therefore it was necessary to go and have two sit downs, by which time the urge for discovery had left me. Mark
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