Our very own countdown thread!

[jaywhat]

Latest post of the previous page:

996 519

Well we all have different cups of tea.

[Marian]

996 518

Speaking of tea, I'd enjoy one just now. Haven't been in lately...must rest.

[Fia]

996 517

Kettle's on. Milk and sugar?

[Dave B]

996 516

Green with just a touch of fresh lime juice?

[Fia]

996 515

That will take longer, only have lime...

[jaywhat]

996 514

Tea in the bag, smidgeon of milk in the mug, lime in the kettle....

[Sel]

996 513

Black Ceylon - loose - a wee bit of sugar and a squeeze of lemon for me - please and thank you

[jaywhat]

996 512

Earl Grey with milk ?

[Fia]

996 511

Earl Grey? Oil of bergamot is fine on skin, but should never be drunk IMHO.

Hope y'all enjoyed your tea.
I had no internet from Friday to this morning. It's good to be back

[Nick]

996,510

Nice to have you back! I've been keeping an eye on the weather. Are you snowed in...?

[jaywhat]

996 511

I had no internet from Friday to this morning. It's good to be back

996509

You seem to be having it as bad as my sister in Aleppo!

[Dave B]

Earl Grey? Oil of bergamot is fine on skin, but should never be drunk IMHO.

Rubbish, Fia! Earl Grey is a delight. I rue the day that they stopped making it available in our local hospital.

996508

I'm not really a tea faddist, not like the chap at work that spent about a £/g for some posh Chinese variety - excluding postage and insurance!

[Fia]

Nice to have you back! I've been keeping an eye on the weather. Are you snowed in...?

Thanks Nick. Much snow but not snowed in... yet.
I can only be online for short bursts though as have done something painful to my back after stacking a ton of wood yesterday. I know I should bend my knees but that's painful too with the arthritis. Silly me though - too much haste to get it out of the snow

I guess, Dave, the Earl Grey is like Marmite in the loving or hating it stakes Oddly (or not) it's the only tea my daughters like...

996 507

[Dave B]

Oddly (or not) it's the only tea my daughters like..

Ah, taste in tea seems not to be a product of either nature nor nurture then, Fia.

Free will lives!

996506

[Dave B]

Diverting off the subject of tea . . .

I have just tried to book a table for two in an Afro-Caribbean restaurant in Gloster. Tried before and it was full - now it is fully booked every Friday and Saturday for the next couple of months!

Oh, well, maybe next year.

996505

[jaywhat]

996504

Why does one often/sometimes have a biscuit with a cup of tea but not with an americano; that is more likely to be something more substantial like a danish.

[lewist]

996 503
I don't get all this nonsense with coffee. An Americano is just a decent size cup or mug of filter coffee, right? Mocha is a wonderfully flavoursome arabic roast that makes a lovely filter coffee. But in coffee shops they use the word for a concoction of all sorts of things except Mocha.

Grump.

[Dave B]

996 502

Down here, Lewis, an Americano is a black coffee, a diluted espresso. Then there are all the sizes, from what I consider large (well over the average cup volume) to bloody big.

Whilst English has pinched foreign words for the past thousand years or so, especially where there is no viable English equivalent that means precisely the same thing, and some are useful for compressing a phrase into a single word, the American-Italianisation of terms for coffee is an affectation too far I think.

I still enjoy asking for, and insisting on not changing, "A small black decaf coffee please," even if it is a tad petty!

Using the name of the bean variety/origin is fair enough, that's like asking for, "An Assam tea please," that is specific.

[jaywhat]

996 501

Americano is most certainly not filter coffee. It is espresso which is bigger, diluted and may have milk added if you choose.

[Fia]

996 500

Clearly coffee's a minefield. (do they have those in Switzerland too? )
When I (very occasionally) buy coffee rather than make it myself I generally ask for a large strong one with cream. As they rarely have that I ask for full fat milk. Which they don't have either So I pay over £2 for the wrong and not nearly enough milk, feel guilty for needlessly contributing to landfill by taking enough ridiculously small sachets of brown sugar to my taste and using the ineffectual wooden stirry thing. (Though I have collected and dried them to use as kindling, and been known to write notes on them).

Sometimes I wonder about societies priorities....

[Dave B]

996499

Know what you mean, Fia. I drink far too many cups of a brown liquid claimed to be coffee by those selling it in our local hospital. Along with this stuff comes a plasticised paper cup, a compulsory plastic lid for this (even if you are drinking in the coffee bar), sugar in sachets and the wooden stirrer. Surprisingly the milk is actually supplied in a big jug for you to help yourself - no little plastic buckets of the stuff.

In the main restaurant there are cup recycling bins (plus others for plastic bottles and cans) but in the coffee bars all the trash goes to fill a single bin - very quickly. Hate to think of the volume, even compressed, of trash that is each year!

They placed recycling bins in Gloster some years ago but the great unwashed are incapable of telling the difference between a drinks can or bottle and a chip wrapper. Still, one has to be thankful that they even bothered to put it in the wrong bin I suppose!

Grump, grump . . .