LONDON – Any seasoned tea drinker will know that dunking a biscuit in your brew is an art mastered only with years of practice. Too long and it crumbles. Too short and your biscuit may as well be fresh out of the packet.
To save you the trouble of fishing biscuit scum from the bottom of your mug while you perfect your dunking skills, we undertook a challenging and highly scientific experiment that holds the answers to all biscuit and tea problems.
We took 12 types of biscuit - from the humble digestive to the fancy-pants Jammie Dodger - and tested their strength. Which would be the first to reach breaking point when meeting the mighty tea, and which would come out victorious in the battle of the biscuits?
There was only one way to find out.
The contenders
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The method
We set about this old-school Chemistry class style, conducting multiple tests in a controlled environment with equipment known for its precision (an iPhone stopwatch). Cups of tea were freshly made for each biscuit (because temperature plays a huge part in a biscuit’s durability), with two splashes of semi-skimmed milk per mug. Biscuits were then submerged 50% into the tea and held until they reached breaking point.
The results
We've ranked the biscuits by their breaking point - from lowest to highest - with a recommended dunking time.
In 11th place: Ginger Nut
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Breaking point: 22 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 3 seconds
Delicious when done right, but a risky game to play.
In 10th place: Digestive
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Breaking point: 23 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 3.5 seconds
Can be easily hampered by sudden wrist movements.
In 9th place: Hobnob
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Breaking point: 36 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 6 seconds
Breaking point should be pushed to its limits in order to (imho) achieve a perfectly dunked Hobnob.
In 8th place: Chocolate Hobnob
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Breaking point: 44 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 9 seconds
It's worth noting that despite its poor ranking, the chocolate Hobnob was the people's choice.
In 7th place: Rich Tea
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Breaking point: 47 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 4 seconds
Anything past four seconds and your rich tea will swell.
In 6th place: Chocolate Digestive
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Breaking point: 60 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 5.5 seconds
Although it's more reliable than the chocolate Hobnob, its taste does not compare.
In 5th place: Malted Milk
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Breaking point: 76 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 6 seconds
No one was expecting the meagre malted milk to pull through, but it proved a real dark horse in the biscuit dunking stakes.
In 4th place: Shortbread
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Breaking point: 102 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 10 seconds
The shortbread's weight makes it unreliable; just when you think its on your side, it drops. A recipe for disaster.
In 3rd place: Jammie Dodger
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Breaking point: 47 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 7 seconds
Although the Jammie Dodger had a worse breaking point than the shortbread, malted milk and chocolate digestive, it retained its taste for long past its recommended dunking time and for this reason, placed third.
In 2nd place: Bourbon
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Breaking point: 125 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 7.5 seconds
The bourbon is particularly versatile, lending itself to both tea and coffee.
And the winner is: Custard Cream
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Breaking point: 125 seconds
Recommended dunking time: 8.5 seconds
A close call between the bourbon and the custard cream was decided by tip top taste retention from the latter.
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The Jammie Dodger was so excited by its podium finish that it started to crumble slightly.
Disqualified for its ambiguous and disputed status: Jaffa Cake
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Breaking point: 110 seconds, if you take into account how long the orange took to completely dissolve (gross)
Recommended dunking time: Never.
Bonus: Slow-mo biscuit dunking
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