A Fever Dream?

Did I really witness Nigel Farage watching clear cut video evidence of Donald Trump suggesting people look into injecting disinfectant, then have him try to deny it and then call someone fake news on live television... or did I just fever dream that whole sequence? It seems so surreal that that's kind of what it feels like.

Politics makes me so angry at the moment. I had to turn off the tele and put the kettle on, if I hadn’t I felt like I might have lashed out in some stupid way.

A nice pot of tea, and 15 minutes of light exercise, and I’m feeling a lot better, so it’s off to the "home office" to get a day's work done.

Review: Yorkshire Tea Toast & Jam Brew

As some of you may know I have a bit of a minor fascination with tea and, to a slightly lesser degree, coffee and to that end will occasionally look out for new products to try. As some of you may also know I'm quite a big, literally and figuratively speaking, fan of the traditional tea and coffee accompaniments, cakes, biscuits, crumpets, toast etc. Bearing both of these facts in mind, when Yorkshire tea announced their new toast and jam brew, and given how pleasant their malty biscuit brew is, my interest was somewhat peaked.

So after a bit of research, in which I discovered this product was going to be a timed exclusive to Asda (who knew tea and video games had so much in common), and the resulting several visits to multiple branches of Asda, I managed to get my hands on a box of these bad boys.

I've now been drinking this fairly regularly for the last couple of days and in my opinion, whilst it is a fairly pleasant brew that offers something slightly different, it's not quite as nice or as accurately flavoured as I'd hoped it would be.

After trying the malty biscuit brew a while ago and being extremely impressed by how it tasted almost exactly like a freshly dunked malted milk, without compromising on the tea flavour, I had fairly elevated expectations. I was hoping for a big fruity hit, with a nice hint of sweetness and a slightly smokey, bready aftertaste. What I got instead was a slightly lighter tea taste with a gentle hint of background fruitiness, a pleasant, relaxing, afternoon brew that would go down well with a couple of crumpets, but certainly not the big flavoured breakfast brew that I was hoping for.

Whilst this won't be something that I go out of my way to buy again, if I happen to stumble on it on offer or someone else offers me a mug of it, I certainly wouldn't turn it down.

I Am A Self Confessed Food And Drink Snob

One of the things that people don’t really know about me is that I can be pretty snobby, but it only really comes into play with certain things, food and drink is one of those things. My snobbery isn’t based on a brands name, or shopping in a particular store, I try not to buy into perceived prestige. My snobbery is based on the quality of the product, the name on the package or where it was bought from quite regularly doesn’t guarantee quality.

With that said, because I’ve had good experiences with them, I have come to associate particular brands or stores with a certain level of quality. One of these is M&S food, their own branded ranges are usually a reasonable balance of quality and price, and I’ve never had a product of theirs that wasn’t at least good. So if I want to treat myself to something that I know is going to be reliable I head to M&S.

One of things I tend to treat myself to is tea, I love a good cup of loose leaf tea made in a teapot. As the name ‘loose leaf’ suggests, a sign that a tea is going to be of better quality is that it’s made up of something that is recognisable as at least part of a dried leaf. Bad quality 'loose leaf’ tea generally looks nothing like leaves of any kind and instead resembles dark brown gritty dust.

I have gone out of my way to treat myself to a 'premium’ tea from M&S, spending a little more on it than normal supermarket 'loose leaf’, only to end up with a bag of gritty dust. To say that I’m disappointed is an understatement, I just hope that it tastes better than it looks… SPOILER ALERT… it doesn’t, it tastes only slightly better than tea made using a standard teabag. I’m very disappointed in you M&S, I expected better.

Have A Break, Have A KitKat! (A Review... Kinda)

It's been a long day, and a long week (how is it only Thursday?), I feel like I deserve a post work pick me up.

It really is hard to beat a pot of builders tea and a four finger KitKat. I'm usually a dark chocolate kind of guy, but I'm absolutely loving these ruby chocolate KitKat's. There's a little hit of acidity in the flavour that's reminiscent of slightly tart autumnal berries. It really intrigues me, especially since there's absolutely no fruit or fruit flavouring in there, it's all down to how they've processed the cocoa beans. I could quite easily find myself addicted to these things.

By the way that is/was my favourite teapot and moments after I took this photo a crack opened up down the side of it. It's now completely useless because it leaks terribly, as evidenced by the fresh tea stains all over my room.

A Simple Pot Of Tea

Making a big deal out of a simple pot of tea is probably the biggest give away that I'm British, though I'm increasingly less certain that I want people knowing that these days.

A Bit Of Comfort

When you’ve had a particularly shit day at work, and know that it’s only going to get worse over the next few weeks and maybe even forever, it’s impossible to over estimate the sheer peace of mind, and general comfort, that your favourite blanket, dark chocolate, strong spiced tea and an old book can bring. To be honest I barely even read any of the book, just the act of holding it and scanning my eyes over the words, along with that amazing old book smell, was a comfort in its self.

Breakfast Teapot

There’s just something deeply satisfying about a breakfast tray with a teapot on it.

Charity Shopping

Been out doing a bit of charity shopping and picked up a couple of vinyls, a rather special cushion and a cute little T G Greens teapot. The teapot is a bit of a triple threat for me, not only am I a local boy, I was born and raised in Church Gresley, but my Nan worked as a cleaner at the T G Greens pottery for years and the piece it’s self is named after the mine my Grandad worked most of his adult life down.

Nans Classic Crumpets

There's something deeply satisfying about crumpets with lashings of butter and a nice big mug of tea, they're even more satisfying if those crumpets are freshly made by your own hands. This is a recipe I found (and only recently reminded of its existence, thanks to a large pack of Mr Warburtons finest), hand written on a piece of paper, tucked in between the pages of one of my Nans old cook books. I've roughly converted it to grams and millilitres and attempted to interpret and re-write my Nans extremely basic notes into a fairly basic recipe. This recipe should make about 12 crumpets, mine mostly turned out to be very rustic looking but still tasted awesome.

You will need:
12 fl oz (340ml) warm whole milk
6 fl oz (170ml) warm water
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp bakers yeast (I tend to use 2 sachets of instant yeast)
12 oz (340g) plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil (rapeseed oil) for greasing

Method:
1. In a bowl, dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm milk and water. Once dissolved set the bowl aside, somewhere fairly warm, until the mixture starts to froth, this usually takes about 10 minutes.
2. Sift the flour, salt and bicarb into a large bowl and mix together.
3. Form a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the yeast mixture into the middle.
4. Pull the flour from around the outside of the bowl into the middle using a wooden spoon, continue to mix this way until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps.
5. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set aside, somewhere fairly warm, until the mixture starts to form bubbles on the surface, this usually takes about 30 - 45 minutes.
6. Heat a cast iron pan or heavy based frying pan over a medium heat, lightly grease the inside of several metal rings (roughly 80mm internal diameter), grease the bottom of the pan and place the rings in the pan.
7. Spoon 2 tbsp of the mixture into each ring and cook for about 5 minutes, until bubbles have appeared and the surface is set.
8. Gently remove the crumpets from their rings, flip them over and cook on the other side for a further 2 minutes.

Notes:
Serve still warm with plenty of butter or allow them to cool for toasting later. This recipe can be modified slightly to make pyclets, simply add an extra 50g of flour to stiffen the mix and cook without the rings.

Tea and Crumpets

You really know that you're British when you sit and think to yourself "It feels like a tea and crumpets kind of evening" in the middle of summer.

Sleepless

Midnight is swiftly approaching on yet another day and once again I find myself suffering from a lack of sleep. As I sit here on my bed, wrapped in my duvet, nursing a mug of hot tea and munching on a slightly over ripe apple, I find myself drawn, increasingly, into the mood of the music I am listening to. It is my experience that listening to something slow, melodic and a little doomy has a calming effect on my mind and as such is often a viable precursor to sleep, I’m currently listening to a selection of the slower Acid Bath tracks, however, far from calming my mind it has led me down into state of apathy and a mild melancholy… I fear I may be in for a long night.