Some uninformed people back home wonder if you can even buy pig products - why not? Its a free country! The picture actually shows pork chops on offer at 50 shekels for 2 kilos.
But coming back to tea, there's nothing wrong with the huge range of quality tea blends, bags, and loose tea you can find in Israel. Its all good stuff. But it's nothing like that English Cuppa, developed and blended to the English palate over hundreds of years. Even "extra strong" Israeli tea is dishwater as compared with the sort of teaspoon-supporting strength we Englishers are used to, the whole held together of course with a dash of milk (after the tea or before it?) and sugar. A visitor last year brought me a box of PG Tips, a wonderful treat, but long gone. Imagine my surprise when my wife noticed it in Salakh Dabakh Mall, an independent supermarket in the Arab village of Biane, just outside Karmiel, alongside such other delights (though not to me) as HP Sauce!
Then there is English mustard. Generally you can get any type made up: Israeli, American, Dijon, grain etc, but not good old Colman's. In a diet of bland flavours, the Englishman's attachment to the unbelievably potent bright yellow mustard is a surprise, to say the least. Although it is extremely rare here made-up, you can buy the powder (which in any case retains its strength better) in a number of delis, as well as supermarkets such as Tiv Ta'am.
Golden syrup, a pale treacle unique to the UK and its former dependencies, is something of a must for flapjacks. To date we have only found one deli, in the Jerusalem suburb of Kiryat Hayovel, which sells it.
Every country has its cheeses and if, like me, you are a cheese lover, you appreciate and enjoy them all. But there is nothing like proper Cheddar or, for that matter, Stilton. Not sure about Stilton, other than at Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, but proper Cheddar is available at the huge supermarket Mercaz HaMazon in the Druze village of Yarka.
Then there's Bird's Custard powder. In reality more or less just cornflour (corn starch) and vanilla, this is an indispensable accompaniment (hot) to steamed puddings and apple pies, and (cold) an ingredient of trifle, that famous Scottish dish beloved of all right-thinking English men and women. Not found it here at all yet - but no doubt it can be sourced in the anglophilic areas of Herzliya and Netanya! Me? I just brought a tub back with me from England a fortnight ago!