First off, life’s photo journal and stats have both been updated. Yay stats.

So… like 75% of the souvenirs we brought back from the UK was tea biscuits (and like 20% was tea). I actually failed at acquiring any single biscuit (or decaf tea bags) from the four big grocery chains, but I had at least one thing from each store, and four things (custard creams, bourbon creams, shortbreads, and decaf tea) each from exactly three stores.

So this past weekend, we had a big taste-off of custard creams, bourbon creams, and decaf tea from Waitrose, Sainsbury, Tesco, and Marks & Spencer. Plus a last-minute addition of malted milk biscuits from Tesco and Marks & Spencer (which I had only acquired from two stores). (Also? One tube of biscuits holds fewer biscuits than you might expect, and I had to cut them in half to ensure enough for everyone. I guess I should’ve brought back doubles of everything.)

The results were interesting because, other than the poor Waitrose custard creams, every other biscuit and tea had at least one person who preferred it.

I’m also kind of amazed how much variation there is between stores on both the biscuits and tea. Most people had a clear favorite for both the bourbons and tea.

The designs are also interesting, because the patterns and fonts for both the custard creams and bourbons seem to be standardized (and maybe the malted milk biscuits, but I didn’t have others to check against)… except for Marks & Spencer, who insists on self-branding everything instead, but in a way that pays homage to the originals.

Lea linked these two articles about biscuit patterns and fonts, which are an interesting read, and also makes me think I should’ve sought out Yorkshire Tea Biscuits to bring some back, because their shape is hilarious.

Also, I still have a package of tea biscuits from Australia… I wonder if I should try and put together a UK vs Australia tasting, now.

(My TCG website has also been getting lots of updates, so if that interests you at all, check it out! I’ve probably covered about half my collection at this point.)