The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

McVitie's rebrand

In the first big biscuit news of 2005 McVities have rolled out rebranded livery over their core range of biscuits including the Digestive, HobNob and Rich Tea. Plans for the rebrand also include bringing Gingernuts and for the first time the Fruit Shortcake into the inner circle of core McVitie's products. This is terrific news for the fruit shortcake which has done such great work over the years without getting the recognition it deserves.	Lovely new logo
The McV branding introduced in 2002 was a halfway house of large McV logo inset with McVitie's. Perhaps McV was too close to McD and the obvious brand connotations that come with it. Maybe it was due to the fact that we all still continued to refer to them as McVitie's. This move also appears to tie in with the TV campaign of 2004 that simply promoted the McVitie's brand through shots of people flicking biscuits crumbs at each other. The whole area of Digestive biscuits will also have some interesting developments in 2005. McVities have produced a 25% fat reduced Digestive, called Light Digestives, along side their conventional ones which weighs in with a calorie count of 66 per biscuit. My very rough calculations mean that you can eat six of the fat reduced ones for the same calorie count as five of the others. Have I missed the point? Chocolate Caramels will be repositioned as McVitie's Chocolate Digestive Caramels to firmly hitch them to hugely successful McVitie's Chocolate Digestive. Finally McVities are set to introduce a Chocolate Orange Digestive in February we've got our hands on some of the first packs find out what we thought of them.

Christmas is coming

Yes, and no doubt the goose is getting fat. Our Turkey for example has left its paddock for Chelmsford we were informed on Saturday by the nice man at the farm where it was raised. However at this time of year our biscuit thoughts inexorably turn to at least one burning issue. What is the precise composition of the Crawford's Rover selection this year?

The Rover selection is the biscuit barometer of the nation, reflecting our most basic biscuit aspirations. Over the years we have seen the overdue departure of the Pink Wafer, reflecting the fact that practically nobody likes them. In recent times we've been perplexed by the appearance of the 'White Bourbon' or 'Dark Vanilla Cream Finger' to give it its technical name. The Rover selection will in the new year revert back to its normal duties as catering biscuits, appearing at one day conferences, seminars and the occasional two day intensive workshop for heads of departments.

This year the line up is as follows, Milk and Plain Chocolate Sweetmeal Digestive, Shortcake, Custard Cream, Bourbon, White Bourbon, Jam Ring, Coconut Ring, Hazelnuts and oat chock cream, Treacle Cream.

Lovely Tea-shirts

Hoorah, we have finally got our lovely new tea-shirts for sale at the NCOTAASD webstore, along with our mugs. We couldn't think of anyone better to show you just how much a NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown shirt can enhance your tea drinking than our good friends Mr and Mrs T. We gave them a couple of steaming mugs of tea some Jammie Dodgers and look how much fun they had. The mens shirts are available in Navy and Burnt Orange whilst the ladies can choose from Skinny Pink and Baby blue. The same picture only bigger Close up of the biscuits

Mr and Mrs T are enjoying their tea, thanks to NCOTAASD shirts and mugs, and a decent plate of biscuits