The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

Welsh Tea Tour

All this week NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown has been on tour in Wales in the second of this years Celtic tea tours. We have had a lovely time, and had a very nice cup of tea and a slice of Bara Brith at Pontsticill Station over look the Taf Fechan reservoir on the Brecon Mountain Railway.

Bara Brith is a traditional Welsh bread made with fruit, and served as a tea time treat. It used to made with fruit that had been steeped in tea, and would keep well for up a week. The fruit was then kneaded into bread dough along with some thing to sweeten it like honey, or more recently sugar. The very best Bara Brith we are aware of, is baked fresh each day at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans just outside Cardiff, where they will very sensibly let you buy a nice cup of tea, to have with it whilst sitting down on the picnic benches provided.

We also had a few Welsh cakes, delicious fruited little flat round cake which can be bought all over Wales, but most especially in the old Markets such as Pontypridd, Cardiff, Bridgend, Swansea, Llanelli or Camarthen. Welsh cakes were traditionally cooked on the hot hearth stones next to the fire, a couple of minutes each side, but can also be made on a griddle, a big flat stone which can be heated on your cooker.

Traditional Welsh tea time fayre, Welsh Cakes and Bara Brith Fullsize image

Lovely views from the Taff trail above Tal-y-bont on Usk Quicktime Panorama

A Smashing 1st Birthday

Hoorah, we are one year old. To celebrate this momentous event we held a 2 day long festival of tea drinking and biscuit eating at NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown HQ. A special thanks to all those who came along and made our celebrations extra lovely. Also our thanks to all of our readers who have emailed us over the year with ideas and suggestions or just aimless ramblings, we love it all.

One of the highlights of the festival was the oversize Marrow smashing, using nothing more than a heavy sledge hammer, the sort you might use for breaking rocks up.

Several Marrows were harmed in the making of this film (1.5Mb) and had to be composted.

Fox's biscuits have also kindly contributed to our celebrations with a consignment of their new biscuit ranges, some of which are so new we've never heard of them! They also popped in a packet of Sports biscuits, Hoorah. Expect some reviews soon.

Biscuit Tin Awareness Week

This week we are discussing biscuit tin issues on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown. The biscuit tin is to biscuits what the teapot is to tea, and plays a pivotal role in most peoples biscuit eating. However, we may be in danger of seeing the biscuit tin sidelined by todays advanced biscuit packaging. Already biscuit barrels, are being reported as scarce or hard to come by. This is the NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown biscuit tin. Show your support for biscuit tin awareness by sending us a picture of your favorite biscuit tin, or by telling us about your biscuit tin experiences. Hoorah! Update biscuit tin awarness week has been such a success we've made this biscuit quiz to celebrate. Test your biscuit recognition skills.