The U.K. coffee chain Costa is boldly going where no sensible business wanted to go before.
What are they doing? Selling cream tea the Cornish way, not the Devon way.
Background break: What’s a cream tea? Two plain scones, strawberry (or sometimes blackcurrant, but they’re going with the more popular strawberry) jam, and clotted cream, which is cream that’s been beatified. I’ve made that joke before. My apologies if you remember it, but I couldn’t think of a better explanation. Plus tea, of course, except that Costa will substitute coffee, which will piss off the purists in both counties.
What’s the difference between the Cornish and the Devon cream tea? In Cornwall, you put the jam on the scone first. In Devon, you start with the cream.
Nations have gone to war over less.
Nobody asked for my advice, but I’d have suggested giving people the fixings and letting them figure out what to do. That would let Costa smile serenely and claim nothing is their fault. Because there’ll be hell to pay over this in Devon.
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And a quick note: It’s summer, apparently, because the first cygnets—baby swans, to those of you not in the know—have been born at the Abbotsbury Swannery, in Dorset.. The Western Morning News (which I can’t find online, so no link, which is a shame because they had a great photo) reports that this is the traditional signal. Here in Cornwall, it’s gray and I’m wearing two sweatshirts, but who am I to argue with tradition?
Starting with cream first. Barbarians.
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People are so irresponsible.
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😏
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“Nations have gone to war over less” haha. So true.
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I don’t know if we should laugh or weep.
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I can cope admirably with both. Please will you do a post about the Ploughman’s Lunch. Can’t get these in Scotland.
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I hadn’t thought about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
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I am a Scot from Scotland and have eaten many a Ploughman’s Lunch. I wonder why you are being denied this small but significant pleasure in life.
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This is getting complicated.
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It certainly is. 😀
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What about if you slice open the scone, add cream to one half, jam to the other, squidge together and turn the filled scone appropriately depending on which county you are eating it?
Now, when it comes to tea, do you put the milk in the cup first or afterwards? Bugger Brexit, this is the important stuff!
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Now here’s somebody who’s got his priorities right. If you make the tea in a pot, you put the milk in first. Why? Because. If you make it in the cup, your decision’s been made for you: You make the tea, then add the milk. If you don’t take milk, you go to the back of the line. And if you squidge the two halves of your scone together as described? You end up in Dorset, where the cygnets are have just hatched, because you got run out of both Cornwall and Devon. I’m telling you, don’t mess with people about this stuff.
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Cream teas…tread carefully, Ellen, tread carefully!
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Thanks for the warning. I do get carried away with myself.
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I don’t think I have ever been anywhere that makes the jam/cream decision for you O_O everywhere I have been gives you all the bits and lets you argue it out amongst yourselves!
I’d have a problem with this…
I don’t like jam, or clotted cream, so I normally give them away to the people who want extras and drink my coffee along with some unadorned scones…
I would get thrown out of Devon and Cornwall… or possibly the entire country!
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You just might get thrown out–these are dangerous times, politically speaking–so do be careful. I don’t have so many readers that I can afford to lose any (she said compassionately).
Village cream teas, open gardens, and events like that often set the scones out with the jam and cream already in place, but I’ve never seen it done at more commercial places. I can’t think why Costa would want to take the time, never mind the risk, but that’s what it said in the paper.
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oh yes, I have seen that now I think about it, on tables covered with (often checked) table cloths, lots of rows of creamy, jammy scones.
I normally ignore them because it looks like someone has ruined a scone…
ahem…I mean oh look yummy cream tea…please let me stay Britishness overlords!!
I am going to go into costa to find out next time I am passing. I might even ask them why they do it like this!
or i might buy a chocolate twist and a coffee and sit quietly…
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I do like those chocolate twists, but I can’t admit it because Costa’s a chain–one of the big, bad beasties running out local businesses.
Mmmm. Chocolate twists.
If you find out how they’re serving them, let me know, would you?
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yes, I know what you mean about big chains running out local businesses…mind you Horsham seems to be able to support an infinite amount of coffee places both chain and non chain based…
I will definitely let you know…I feel a bit of detective work coming on…or possibly nosiness…
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Fantastic. Thanks.
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I feel like I need to stalk you, Ice Badger, so that I can have the advantage of your generous donations of clotted cream scones. You’ll be glad to know I currently live in America so you don’t need to take out a restraining order.
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A-ha! I shall be on my guard for trans-Atlantic clotted cream snafflers!
Although quite honestly you are welcome to the cream and the jam 😁
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Right. You put the cream on one hand and the jam on the other hand. And Devon and Cornwall fight over which one to lick first.
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hehehe I could stand on the border and have them fighting over my hands :-D
yeay! this somehow needs to be a film! (possibly a short one)
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I can’t quite see it but I’m willing to play–oh, I don’t know. The coffee, maybe. My presence will make a lot of trouble and I’ll end up being rejected. Heartbreak. Tragedy. I’ll sulk off and, I don’t know, see if anyone wants me to play Richard III next.
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ahh yes…you will be perfect coffee…
now we just need someone to play the winsome traditional heroine (the tea)
I can see this becoming a blockbuster and simultaneously answering the jam/cream question!
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I don’t think the jam/cream conundrum is answerable. Maybe we should aim a little lower.
I’m also not sure a conundrum’s something you answer, but I wanted to avoid question, which seemed to demand an answer.
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you could be right…and I am not sure it *really* matters
oh…ok…i’ll get my coat and my passport…I am sure to be deported now!
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We do live on the edge, don’t we?
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We do!
Are we the dangerous fringe element you hear about?
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Quite possibly. You remind me of a sign someone carried in one of the early gay liberation demonstrations: “We are the people our parents warned us about.”
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hahaha
I like that sign :-D
I think I am the people other peoples parents warned them about…as were my parents :-D
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Mine as well, but I’ll stop bragging now.
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:-D
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In PA you should be able to get The Farmer’s (or “Country”) breakfast, if that helps.
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I’m not sure it solves Laura’s problem, but it sounds good to me.
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I have happily found a local source of imported clotted cream. I did have two sources but one quit stocking it. Thanks for the tip though.
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Our daughter is a fan of millionaire’s shortbread. Because it has three layers, she rates it out of 9 (3 for each layer). She rates Costa’s 9 – the only one she does. Well, it’s a partially relevant comment, innit?
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It’s close enough to work here. And in the department of partially relevant comments, a few years ago I was trying to find a recipe for millionaire’s shortbread for a friend who lives in Minnesota, where you can’t get golden syrup. The trick was to find one that used almost anything else, which I finally did manage. I’m not sure how it would rate, layer by layer, but given that it has no competition for many miles in any direction, I don’t expect anyone’s too critical.
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Well, there you go :)
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I was brought up to put the jam on first though I have no Cornish ancestors that I know of. Wherever it’s sold, we should be left to do it ourselves. I could munch at least three cream teas right now but I’ve just had two fillings in one go and can’t eat for two hours. This hunger is not helped by smelling chips from the pub next door! Oh, woe is me. We have the sun. Hope you have too!
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The sun just came out after a gray day, due no doubt to your good wishes. I send mine back to you.
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I was sitting here drinking my coffee when I asked myself “Did she say “Beatified” or “Beautified”? Then I asked myself “Why did it take over an hour and a half for that light bulb to go on?”
God, I’m slow without my coffee in me.
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Definitely beatified. It’s only beautiful once you figure out how good it tastes. After that, you think it’s gorgeous.
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Replacing the tea in a cream tea with coffee is more than enough reason to start a war of some kind.
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I should’ve said that. What was I thinking??
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So many risky issues here already, it’s easy to overlook! ;)
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Still. As an American, I owe it to my adopted country to be more sensitive about this.
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:-) :-) :-)
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I’m reading all this about scones and millionaire’s shortbread and the likes just wishing my own adopted country, France, could lay on a few more real afternoon tea goodies. All we get here are ‘chouqettes’, ‘cannelés’ and other airy, weird, French things. Feeling very homesick for Scotland!
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Most of my homesickness transforms itself into missing things I can eat. It’s made me a better cook, but I have my limits. I’d love a good plate of huevos rancheros right now. Or, for that matter, a truly sublime homegrown tomato.
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I am sure wars have been started over less. In short – I. Am. Appalled. What are they thinking? Frankly, no matter whether the CEO of Costa prefers the Devonian or Cornish method, they shouldn’t be required to make a substantive decision anyway since the only appropriate way to serve a cream tea is to provide little dishes and plates of the components and allow the awaiting munchers to determine how to construct the treat. That is part of the joy of the whole experience. And then I read a few sentences on and realised they were serving it with coffee (which seems obvious now since it’s Costa) and I decided it was just wrong, wrong, wrong and their whole cream tea venture deserves to wither on the vine and die a quick death.
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I’m–what’s the right word here? Distraught? That’ll do. I’m distraught that I didn’t address the coffee issue. I did notice the absurdity but couldn’t see past the Cornwall/Devon divide.
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As a resident of Cornwall, I’m sure your priority and focus was on not causing a diplomatic incident over that issue. It’s a pick your battles sort of scenario. Coffee v tea is a mere skirmish compared to cream or jam first.
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I don’t know if I can agree with that. Coffee vs. tea is so fundamental that I don’t think I really took in the way it destabilizes the entire cream tea.
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Perhaps I’m particularly “offended” because I don’t drink coffee but have an addiction to tea.
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I’m with you on that.
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Coffee cream tea? The heretics!
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Truly.
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Kinda reminds me of the Chili Wars in Texas in the States – beans, or no beans…and level of spice?
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Something like it, yes. Just add a heavy dose of regional rivalry.
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It’s not really a cream tea, is it? It’s coffee with scones and jam. in such a situation the cream belongs in the coffee, not in the scone. I doubt many people looking for a cream tea will think Costa. They’ll think tea shop in a side street or one of the increasingly numerous places which do incredibly expensive afternoon teas.
Is it wrong to think that the person who came up with the idea should be deported?
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I have trouble backing deportation for much of anyone, but it’s a better reason than the ones they’re giving for some of the people they are deporting–she said in an incredibly clumsy sentence that she didn’t have time to rethink before hitting Reply.
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I tried to think of something suitably drastic, but not so politically charged and failed. Hanging and life imprisonment were going too far. In former ages they called it exile, which sounds slightly romantic and finite.
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Funny how the choice of word changes it all. Exile? Absolutely.
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Love the photo and “Nations have gone to war over less” – I can see that. I hope you’re not in the line of fire.
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So far so good. I wouldn’t want to live right on the Cornwall-Devon border, though.
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Good. I don’t want to see a post titled “Collateral Damage”
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I’ll try to avoid that headline.
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Definitely a jam first…how the hell do you stop a jam landslide if you put the cream on first?
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I’m going to have to leave that for someone who lives in Devon to answer.
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(SELECT (CASE WHEN (7901=8231) THEN 7901 ELSE 7901*(SELECT 7901 FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS) END))
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Now there’s a provocative comment. And if I wanted to approve them, I could have a dozen variations on it here.
What does it all mean, bartender?
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