Who would want to drink tea that tastes like biscuits? It is, of course, a classic pairing: personally, I wouldn’t contemplate one without the other. But what is the point of forging them into a single entity? A box of “biscuit tea” that forms part of Aldi’s new range has only this to say: “Nothing better than a brew and a biscuit, so why not taste them together in one cup?” Except for the “not”, this is exactly my question.
If you are intent on adding one taste to another, this seems to be the wrong way round. On opening a box with the words “biscuit” and “tea” on the front, several members of my household were disappointed to find it contained biscuit-flavoured tea, and not tea-flavoured biscuits.
But there is clearly a market for such an innovation. Flavouring drinks with a biscuit-like taste is an emerging trend, and Aldi is, if anything, a bit late climbing aboard the bandwagon. There are even biscuit-flavoured gins that turn up at Christmas. Still, I ask myself: “Why?” In search of an answer, I resolved to test as many examples of the phenomenon as I could find.
Aldi Diplomat biscuit tea
On my first sip, I thought: what are they on about? This is just tea. But a second, more considered sip unleashed a faint malty note and a hint of vanilla. If it is not exactly biscuity, it is certainly biscuit-adjacent, like drinking tea downwind of a biscuit factory.
Even so, it is hard to tell what Aldi is driving at, since the type of biscuit being mimicked isn’t specified and the ingredients list is short and cryptic: “black tea, flavouring”. It is only my opinion, but I do not believe diplomats will care for this.
Yorkshire Tea malty biscuit brew
Aldi’s biscuit tea would appear to owe a great debt to Taylor of Harrogate’s Yorkshire Tea version, which has been around for a while. Its package design is similar and so is its unenlightening ingredients list (“black tea, natural flavouring”). There isn’t a huge difference in taste either: both give off a similar, nonspecific biscuit smell, although this one is a bit subtler, which I guess is an improvement. The instructions say, “enjoy with or without milk”, but I managed not to enjoy it either way.
Yorkshire Tea does, however, go some way towards offering up a justification for its product, describing it as “a magical mug of biscuity goodness that doesn’t get crumbs on your jumper”. All the joy of biscuits, with none of the thankless hardship of eating them.
Aldi Diplomat jaffa biscuit tea
Another new one from Aldi’s Diplomat range. This formula combines tea with cacao husks and orange peel to approximate, I’m assuming, the sensation of drinking a cuppa while someone seated across the table from you eats the last jaffa cake. On its own, this tea is citrussy and perfectly pleasant. If it leaves one with the overall feeling of being deprived of something, it is nothing a packet of jaffa cakes wouldn’t fix.
Bird & Blend chocolate digestives tea
Now we’re talking. This high-end loose tea (£3.50 for a 20g pouch, plus shipping, although I got a couple of free samples with my order) aims to recreate the hot beverage and chocolate digestive experience through a tempting blend of Sri Lankan black tea, cocoa nibs, cocoa shells, fenugreek and liquorice root.
Does it succeed? Yes and no. It is a very nice tea, but the interplay of flavours here is quite subtle and sophisticated, where the taste of a chocolate digestive is anything but – they are, as a rule, light on fenugreek. I tried to bridge the gap through the addition of four tablespoons of sugar but, in doing so, I created something next to undrinkable. This tea, I think, is best enjoyed on its own, without milk or sugar, while contemplating one’s own virtue. You can always eat a bunch of chocolate digestives later, while everyone else is asleep.
Beanies Buckingham biscuit flavour instant coffee
As the eagle-eyed will have spotted, this is not actually tea. Other than that, the ingredients list – “freeze-dried coffee, flavouring” – gives away nothing. Flavourings generally consist of aromatic compounds, which do not have to be specified by law, but I think I detect, along with vanilla essence, a hint of that artificial butter aroma you get from microwave popcorn. I can’t be certain, but the smell lingered in the room long after I had stopped drinking the coffee, directly after the second sip.
The Jammie Dodger
This is not any kind of hot drink, but a cocktail. And it’s not a product, but a recipe. According to Difford’s Guide: “The origin of this drink is unknown, but it is named after and inspired by the classic British biscuit produced by Burton’s foods.”
The Jammie Dodger cocktail relies heavily on an ingredient for which there is no ready substitute: black raspberry liqueur, for example Chambord. You are unlikely to have any lying around, but it is widely available. I managed to find some at the supermarket for the reduced price of £6.50 for a stubby 20ml bottle, which I believe constitutes a lifetime supply.
The drink’s components are layered in a shot glass: Chambord, then cream, with a garnish of crushed biscuits round the rim and sprinkled on top, to taste. I had to get my youngest son, who has considerable bartending experience, to do it properly, pouring the cream gently over the back of a spoon to keep the layers from mixing.
While he was there, I also made him do a Jammie Dodger shot with me, because it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I felt a bit weird drinking a thing like that on my own.
“Cheers,” I said. “It’s for work.” We downed them, staring at each other in mounting disbelief.
“That’s amazing,” he said.
“It tastes exactly like a Jammie Dodger,” I said.
“It really does,” he said. “An alcoholic Jammie Dodger.” We said nothing at all for a moment, but I could tell we were both thinking the same thing: we should probably do another one.
