{"id":3745,"date":"2026-09-01T17:37:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2026-09-01T20:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:31:34","slug":"biscuit-tastings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/?p=3745","title":{"rendered":"Biscuit Tastings"},"content":{"rendered":"

First off, life’s<\/a> photo journal and stats have both been updated. Yay stats.<\/p>\n

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.
\n<\/p>\n

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.)
\n<\/p>\n

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.
\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.
\n<\/p>\n

Lea linked these<\/a> two articles<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(My TCG website<\/a> 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.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal2.alanv.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}