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Your e-Mails

Emma Marshall Custard Cream Review	Ah, when I was younger custard was always Bird's. In fact, an offer of 'nanas and custard was usually turned down with a "can I just have the custard?". Then we upped and moved to more southern waters, where there was no Bird's (or even custard creams!), and the natives preferred something rather vile called Ultramel. This way too viscous stuff came out of a tetrapak carton and was an unnatural shade of yellow. Strangely enough, I went off eating it altogether. (Although I would still eat far too many custard creams if I could get my hands on them). My husband and I have now moved again, to another southern clime, where I managed to find some ludicrously priced Bird's powder (and some custard creams!). Since making it for hubby, I've realised that I actually do like the stuff. In fact, I like it even more when I make it myself from eggs, sugar, vanilla, etc. I like it kind of 'tuesdayish' I think. Runny (or Creme Anglais-y if you want to be posh). It just musn't come ready made out of a carton. Eww. Thanks for the bittersweet reminders of my favourite biccies. Think I need some tea now. Emma Marshall Brisbane
Nadine England	The two-cup drink/dunk is an amazing thing. I am sat here in Australia in a water shortage situation at the mo and can't help but think that it is too much of a luxury at present to be dunking in a separate cup. I will have to stick to holding a piece of biscuit in my mouth and quickly taking a sip of tea, to achieve the dunked effect without getting that nasty sediment at the bottom of the cup. Nicey, I lived for some time in London, and coming back to Australia has reminded me that tea can taste oh so different depending on the local water supply. I remember having lovely cups of tea in Devon and The Peaks, and I always used filtered water in the kettle in London. Where, in the world, is the best 'tea water'?
	Nicey replies: Very good point about the water. Our water at NCOTAASD HQ is very hard being drawn from chalk ground water. It does however produce its own sort of unique tea which without realising over the space of a mere ten to fifteen years one gets quite used to. Having spent three weeks travelling around France making tea in various places, there is still nothing quite like that first cuppa when you get home. Is it the water? I'm sure many people would be thinking of Yorkshire Tea's two blends for hard and soft water areas which they'll post samples out free to UK residents. Also I'm fairly sure that vats of Manchester water used to shipped out to Indian tea plantations to aid with the proper blending of the tea before shipment.
Sarah Derryman	Hola Nicey (gone all Spanish for a bit as it's hollies season) You said in your reply to Nessa's lovely pictures of her tea party (what a fabulous idea, I may take the liberty of following suit if she doesn't object...) that the plucky blue teapot had a chip out of its rim. But surely you can see that it's one of those spangly-fangled clever teapots which can hold its own integral strainer attachment, thereby allowing the use of leaves instead of bags without having to cart around the small hand-held tea strainer (with the accompanying dilemma of where to put it when it gets full of leaves). Jolly lovely array of teapots and cups/saucers there, do all of Nessa's friends share her passion and brought along their own I wonder? What a fabulous idea - after the advent of book clubs, knitting circles and sewing gangs, perhaps we should all be starting NCOTAASD appreciation societies, meeting once a month for general tea, biscuit and sit-down activities in the company of like-minded others? I'm sure I can't have been the first to think of it... Hope you head off somewhere smashing for your hollies, love to Wifey and the YMOS. Sarah in Bath xxx
	Nicey replies: Yes you can see how ignorant I am of cutting edge teapot gadetry, and you're not the only one to pick me up on this. Still I think a few chips and the occasional missing handle add a touch of earthy personality to some of the more senior teapots, even if it does make them unpleasant and awkward to use.
Kevin Southham	Regarding Nicholas 'Kif' Stevensons' email about one individual rogue jaffa cake in each of his two packs facing the wrong way, I can tell you that the reason for this is so the chocolate on the top of the jaffa cake doesn't melt when the plastic wrapper is heat sealed. If the chocolate was facing the outside it could melt if it came into contact with the hot, recently sealed plastic, thus the end jaffa cake, with the chocolate facing outside, is turned around to face the inside. I can also divulge that this is done by machine rather than by hand. Your eagle-eyed readers will also notice this happens on most chocolate topped biscuits. I hope this answer satisfies your quench for biscuit knowledge.
	Nicey replies: I feel like stopping people on the street and passing that on now that I know. I expect you have been doing so for years I've just never run into you.
Jim Fussell	Nicey, What Nessa appears to have had is a tea and fruit infusion party.....however i'm not going to get started on that again! I've always thought you can tell a lot from someone's tea drinking habits and I think we can read a lot in to Nessa through these photos. - She has laid out 19 cups and therefore expects 18 friends or family to join her for her party, this tells me she is clearly popular. - She expects to get around 5 cups of tea out of each pot. This tells me she is an ambitious person but not someone who would tackle the impossible. - The spread of identical iced fingers, large cake and enormous variety of tea types tells me that she likes to avoid conflict. - The tesco finest jam tells me that she enjoys a little luxury in life, however would not waste money on top end names such as M+S or Waitrose just to impress. Am I somewhere near the mark in my tea psychiatry? I'm sure you have the higher resolution pictures at HQ, so could you tell me what those 3 strange spherical objects are in the middle picture. Cheers, Jim.
	Nicey replies: Yes I thought I would let the infusion thing go which seemed fair as the three round things appear to be plums showing a genuine interest in fruit.
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