18i3_Tea_Report
Biscuit brew tea
UK
Yorkshire Tea’s Biscuit Brew is a new slant on an old tradition. It combines the British Builder tea – heavy basic black and now smoothed and enhanced as English Breakfast -- with a chocolate or milk digestive biscuit perched on the saucer.
Dunking the biscuit in the tea may not match the Japanese tea ceremony but was pervasive in offices, cafes and at home and a treasured cultural emblem.
Biscuit Brew infuses an Assam, Sri Lanka and Kenya blend with all the flavor of a dunking biscuit. This adds a malty sweetness. The many initial reviewers almost all express a wariness among the testers and then a somewhat relieved approval of the tea. Many commentators highlight an attractive feature of the tea: ending the problem of the soggy dunk and broken bikkie that leaves dumps at the bottom of the cup.
The national Daily Mirror tabloid captures the general reactions, including the headline comment that it’s not an April Fool joke:
“We tried a mug or two, the flavor is subtle but definitely there.” (April 1, 2018)
The tea is one more indicator of the search among consumer brands for new products to stem the ever-declining erosion of the core UK black tea market. Yorkshire is positioning it as a specialty breakfast tea. Around a third of British tea drinkers routinely add a biscuit.
Yorkshire stresses the health and convenience feature. The flavoring is “natural” and gluten-free and the tea Rain Forest Alliance-certified. It highlights the convenience of the tea: “Biscuits are so often linked to tea we thought why not just make life easier and put the flavors together...”
One comment is more far-reaching and indicates the primary driving force of flavor innovation by sellers and readiness to break with tradition of buyers: “Consumers are increasingly expanding their drinks repertoire.”