Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down/Kekskritiken

The weblog nice cup of tea and a sit down is well enough known for its biscuit reviews, and there is even a book (if ordering from amazon in Germany, note the price varies between US and UK editions). Can a couple of translation references excuse a long quote of Alan Bromley’s review of the German Choco Leibniz review?

bq. The Bahlsen Choco Leibniz is a triumph of design and Germanic biscuit engineering. The slogan on the box – ‘More chocolate . . than a biscuit’ – probably lost something in the translation into English, but it’s true to its word in having the thickest, most exquisitely crafted slab of plain chocolate welded to a precision-made Rich Tea biscuit. I’d say the biscuit is a token gesture intended simply not to make the consumer feel guilty about eating so much chocolate. The biscuit does usefully help prevent getting chocolate over both fingers but is nevertheless quite secondary to the sensory pleasure of the eating experience.

bq. My only criticism is that there is no obvious way of eating one that is likely to annoy a loved one. I found it impossible to lever the chocolate from the biscuit using my bottom incisors; nibbling around the outside only serves to give you one very chocolately finger; and licking the chocolate off is, frankly, quite impossible for one so lacking in patience like myself.

bq. I like to think of my discovery in terms of having driven an Austin Maxi for the past 20 years and then being given an Audi A8. Bahlsen is to McVitie’s as Audi is to British Leyland. Je repose mon valise, as they say in France.

9 thoughts on “Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down/Kekskritiken

  1. I was once met, pre-1989 i.e. before the Berlin Wall came down, a worker from a well-known chocolate factory in Saxony in the then GDR. The ingredients poured into the mix sounded appetizing. However, the rodents she saw crawl into the vats didn’t. Chocolate mice took on a new meaning.

  2. That’s the problem with the Leibniz (and many other German biscuits): basically, it’s just a Rich Tea biscuit with a chocolate coating. Doesn’t make the Rich Tea taste any better, to be honest. Rich Tea biscuits were one of the reasons I emigrated from the UK in the first place, but I do miss my digestives…

  3. I am now wondering what kind of biscuits are most likely to conceal a mouse. Something with a chocolate coating, perhaps.Robin: Granola are not too bad if you don’t mind chocolate on them. And it doesn’t crack apart like the stuff on the Choco Leibniz.I took that as being tongue in cheek, but you never know.

  4. Oh, I see. No, don’t bother – I will mentally add a smiley to any future comments.Btw, people who’ve worked in Nürnberg Lebkuchen factories won’t touch the stuff again either.

  5. Granola are a bit soft and squidgy for my taste, and certainly no substitute for a proper chocolate diggie biscuit (McVities are still the best here, but Tesco’s own brand is now better than Sainsburys and M&S no longer even has a look-in). What aren’t bad at all are the chocolate Hobbits, which are the German equivalent of Hobnobs, but less sweet (a good thing).

  6. Yes, I take your point about Granola. It’s the non-chocolate digestive I prefer. To do the site justice, their review of Rich Tea, although too positive, does describe their unsatisfactory behaviour on dunking very well. Not that dunking is the most important thing, but I have become fonder of dunking gingernuts in tea than I was when I was in Britain!

  7. At the time of writing, I have 4 Google ads on this page: one for the English Shop in Cologne, and the other three all for treats for dogs. What am I missing?

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