Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to biscuits, but the experts have now determined the best biscuit to have with tea based on how well it holds up against a dunking.
A comparative study has found that oat biscuits, such as the humble Hobnob, work best for dunking in tea thanks to their “structural integrity”.
In second place were digestive biscuits, followed by shortbread biscuits in third, and rich tea biscuits bringing up the rear.
The study, published in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, tested each biscuit for nutritional content, how absorbent they were, crunchiness and “integrity after dunking”.
Oat biscuits had a relatively low absorbency rate and the highest “dunk break point”, lasting 34.3 seconds in a freshly brewed cup of tea before falling apart.
In comparison, digestive biscuits lasted 28.3 seconds while shortbread biscuits lasted 31.7 seconds. Rich tea biscuits were the quickest to fall into the tea, lasting just 21.3 seconds.
The experts also measured how crunchy the biscuits were before and after dunking by measuring how loud the crunch was with a decibel meter.
In this area, the digestive won out over the oat biscuit as it showed the smallest reduction in “crunch volume” after absorbing tea. The shortie came in last, while the rich tea biscuit took third place.
The study’s authors said they chose the four biscuit types based on “extensive research from years of frequenting staff rooms in NHS hospitals” and landing on the most commonly found biscuits.
It was conducted in order to “better inform NHS staff when having a tea break”, they wrote.
“NHS staff can easily enjoy the pairing of a cup of tea with a biscuit in less than 10 minutes. Biscuit dunking has a beneficial effect on tea cooling and should be encouraged, and the oat biscuit was the best at achieving this when compared with the digestive, rich tea and shortie.
“Making time for a cup of tea is an important daily ritual, and it should be encouraged to help improve the mood and performance of healthcare workers,” the authors concluded.
