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 |
Hiromi Miura
Japanese McVities Digestives Review |
Dear Nicey,Wifey and YMOS
Some Mcvitie's biscuits seemed to decide to spend summer season in an ice-cold place in Japan!
The other day, I found some Mcvitie's biscuits being in an ice-cream case ay my local "Queen's Isetan" supermarket.
How wise they are!
They must see that summer in Japan is humid and hot, well. Therefore, I suppose that some Mcvitie's' determined to move into such a paradise, away from the usual biscuit shelf.
Inside the red box, you can see six ice-cream sandwich biscuits individually wrapped. If you rule that the side of "Mcvitie's stamp" is its face, you might see six pairs of biscuits taking a peaceful snooze, cooling their oven-baked biscuit backs on/under the chocolate ice.
The chocolate-flavoured ice-cream is smooth and rich. However, the Mcvitie's biscuit looks like losing their original crunchy texture of plain Digestive biscuits on/under the ice-cream.
They are soft, moist and soggy.
But it is enjoyable for me to eat such loose Mcvitie's biscuits once in a while in hot summer.
The ice-cream Mcvitie's is approximately 5.8cm in diameter.
Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Hiromi Miura (Tokyo,Japan)
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Nicey replies: Hiromi,
Yet another exotic Japanese Digestive. I wonder if chocolate digestives would fair better? The layer of chocolate might help stop them going soggy? |
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Walter Bauters
Lotus Caramelised Biscuits Review |
In Belgium we do eat sometimes "speculoos" biscuits as the filling of a buttered whitebread sandwich.
This is a cherised memory of my infancy.
The Lotus caramelised biscuit you describe, is member of the "speculoos" family.
(Just now, I discovered your sweet website. So my comment comes a little late)
sincerely, Walter Bauters |
Nicey replies: Walter,
Hats off to you Belgian people, biscuit sandwiches, you have our respect. |
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Peter Burgess |
I thought you may be interested to learn that the vending machine in the physics department of imperial college (a place at the very forefront of scientific invention) has a vending machine of the 'clix' brand which in addition to the regular vending machine issues you have highlighted also revels in giving you the 60p you get back from a pound in exchange for your steaming liquid entirely in 1p pieces.
In continental tea issues my girlfriend is currently living in Germany where they seem to have pioneered a kind of halfway house between loose leaf and the tea bag. I'm not sure if you are aware of this development but essentially it is a very long teabag which is open at one end, the theory is you put your loose leaf into the bag and then put it into your mug. The teabag is just long enough that it stands in your mug without the contents spilling over into the tea when you add water. I think they're rather clever.
Yours Peter Burgess |
Nicey replies: No I'd not heard of those DIY teabags, they sound like they could be well received by 'ALL tea bags are filled with sweepings' brigade. One such lady last Tuesday tried to tell me that those little metal ball things on chains were marvelous, that I should go to India to see how tea is really made before having an opinion on it, and that as she was a wine writer she knew a thing or two about things and I was best advised not to argue with her. I told her that we drink PG and this seemed to annoy her sufficiently. |
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Murray James
Tim Tam vs Penguin Review |
Hello there Nicey
I have recently moved from England to Thailand for a 6 month work placement, and I have to say that the wonderful contents of your site keep me dreaming of hours of tea and biscuitty/cake based fun when I return to Blighty. I miss certain biscuits, the Bourbon, the Custard Creme, the Ginger Nut, but especially the classic Penguin. It was whilst perusing through your the archived tomes of your website however that I came across an exciting alternative, the eccentrically named 'Tim Tam'.
So having swotted up the great Tim Tam versus Penguin debate, and being a self-admitted Penguin fan, I was of course eager to try and compare the Tim Tams, so on my next visit to the local shop purchased a few packs. I was pleasantly surprised by the Tim Tam. Initially there is something about the little biscuit that looks a touch dodgy, it's snubbed size and curiously dark choclolate coating expire a sense of foreboding, but on taste you realise that in fact Penguins merely scratch the surface of the true iceberg that is Chocolate Coated Biscuitdom. Penguins just seem bland in comparison with a Tim Tam. Tim Tams come in many different deeply tasty varieties, in my opinion the best are Choco-Chocolate and Choc-Vanilla, but even an Original Tim Tam will more than adequately complete your cup of tea and biscuit combo, and leave you with a smile on your face. And maybe a touch of melted chocolate at the corner of your mouth.
After a few much enjoyed tasting sessions, I bravely decided, as suggested on this very website and on the bold, brown packaging of the Tim Tams themselves, to try the famous 'Tim Tam Slam'. So I bit off 2 opposite corners, and tried a few times to 'enjoy' my cuppa by sucking it through the biscuit, hoping to filter through some chocolatey goodness. But to my horror, the whole experiment went quite magnificently pear-shaped. Never have I experienced a better way of destroying a biscuit and also a cup of tea. Within just a few seconds of 'Slamming' I found that the bottom third of my Tim Tam was already lost to the dark side of bottom sludge. The top of the Tim Tam also melts, as the steam from your tea rebounds off your face, as you are hunched over the cup, desperately slurping. And if you wear glasses, they will undoubtedly steam up too, thus significantly impairing your vision. With only a miniscule amount of tea slurped through the biscuit, I decided to cut my losses and go for the munch. But the Tim Tam itself had become so soft and gooey that it had lost it's unique taste as it denatured into a watery quagmire, hitting my mouth like a festival buffet stand cup of tea. There was nearly a tear in my eye. The results of the experiment were that firstly I felt and looked like a fool, secondly I had ruined my cup of tea, and thirdly I had also destroyed a couple of delightful Tim Tams that could have so easily been dunked and enjoyed in the 'proper' way. I feel quite ashamed and have vowed never to Tim Tam Slam again. Those Australians need to learn I thing or two about ingesting Tea and Biscuits.
I just thought you should know...
Murray
PS For a real treat, place your Tim Tams in the freezer ten minutes before you find somewhere for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. |
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Sam |
Hi Mr Nicey,
First let me say that your website is amazing, this is what the internet was invented for. Keep up the good work.... Now my reason for writing.
As an asian born and raised here in the UK, it's fair to say that tea is destined to be in my system. So I would like to share with you my genius invention of making indian tea in less than 10 minutes (It usually takes about 20).
Step 1: Boil water in kettle
Step 2: Pop your teabag and sugar into an empty cup
Step 3: Pour boiling water into the cup and stir 5 times and squeeze the teabag against the inside of the cup to extract the flavour.
Step 4: Pop the cup into the microwave for 1 and a half minutes (700 watt microwave).
Step 5: Add milk and reheat in the microwave until the mixture looks like its ready to boil over. (This is what the light inside the microwave was invented for).
Step 6: Stir the tea and take the teabag out the cup.
Step 7: Open a packet of hobnobs and enjoy!
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