More Tea with That? England's Tea Time Biscuit Tradition

There are few things more English than the traditional cup of tea and a selection of biscuits, but the humble biscuit long predates the existence of England.

The earliest foods that could realistically be called biscuits originated in the Neolithic era, and were baked on stones, although according to archaeologists who have studied the period, we can't be sure how exactly those early biscuits looked.

For the word biscuit itself, we can thank the French, although the word originally has a Latin root, and refers to twice-cooked bread. The Romans themselves were keen on biscuits, although their take on the snack was more like the rough and ready food we would call a rusk, and was produced through re-baking bread, which was one of the ways used to make sure that it lasted longer.

The definition of biscuit remained hazy until the Middle Ages, when the word was used to refer more specifically to something that we would recognise. At that time there was an unusual yet fascinating array of proto-biscuits eaten in England, which included wafers, made with a sweet batter and cooked over a fire. The other important development was that by this time, biscuits had become what was considered a dessert food, often eaten at the end of meals, as a digestive.

The biscuit that went to sea

There was still plenty of demand for the traditional long-lasting biscuits, though these were most common in the Navy as the centuries wore on, as they met the need for solid and enduring food that would last for the long journeys associated with exploration and colonialism.

In fact, the staple diet of sailors in the 18th century consisted almost entirely of salted meat and biscuits, although it is important to remember that this was no dainty chocolate digestive. These biscuits were hard, so hard, in fact, that they were almost inedible. They were designed to last, and the oldest surviving biscuit is a ship's biscuit that dates from 1784.

The English biscuit was transformed thanks to the widespread availability of sugar from the middle of the 17th century, made possible through the horrors of the slave trade. The arrival of sugar as a culinary ingredient had a major effect across all types of foods, particularly cakes and biscuits, as people experimented with different tastes and textures. At the same time, the influence of Italian and French cooking and the collapse of the guild system led to more people baking their own biscuits.

By the Victorian era, biscuits were a widespread phenomenon in English life, and as major food companies began to mass produce them, the biscuit came within reach of most English people throughout the 20th century. The habit of serving biscuits as an alternative to cakes and other sweets with English tea caught on, and to this day, a cup of tea and a biscuit or two is a traditional mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack.

Many of the biscuits that English people enjoy today have a long and distinctive history, and it is remarkable how enduring their popularity has been. If you are new to the English biscuit tradition, here are six of the best to try.

Bourbon

The bourbon biscuit is made to a simple but enduringly popular formula: two thin rectangles of dark-chocolate flavoured biscuit are sandwiched around a chocolate buttercream filling. It was first produced in England in 1910 by manufacturer Peek Freans, which was based in Bermondsey in London. Originally, the biscuit was known as Creola, but the bourbon name, taken from the French royal family, was added in the 1930s, and the biscuit has become immensely popular with generations of English tea drinkers and biscuit eaters.

Surveys in the UK have found that the bourbon is one of the top tea-dunking biscuits for English people. One interesting note is that the small holes in the biscuit are not just a distinctive design but fulfil a useful purpose. The holes ensure that steam can escape during the cooking process, which helps to stop the biscuit breaking up. Bourbons are popular in many countries around the world and are one of the most recognisable of English biscuits.

Custard Cream

The custard cream is another hugely popular biscuit, both in England and across the UK. Like the bourbon, it is a sandwich-type biscuit, but this time the filling is a custard-flavoured mixture. Originally, the filling used in these biscuits was buttercream, and this is still used in some home-made versions, but butter has long been considered an unnecessarily expensive product to use in biscuit filling, so the custard cream filling is now generally made with a mixture that produces a vanilla taste, making it close to the taste of custard made with custard powder.

The custard cream predates the bourbon by two years, having been first seen in England in 1908, when the elaborate design on the sandwich biscuit sections helped them to stand out among the competition. There have been various versions employing a variety of fillings, ranging from lemon to coconut, but the custard filling remains dominant in one of the most popular English biscuits of all time.

Rich Tea

Rich tea biscuits have some similarities to the digestive biscuits developed in Scotland, but this English product is a distinctive type of biscuit. It is a sweet biscuit, made with flour, sugar, malt extract and vegetable oil, and has a surprisingly long history. In fact it can be plausibly dated back to the 17th century. It is believed that the rich tea was developed in the county of Yorkshire, and was originally known as the tea biscuit, considered a light snack for the upper classes to dine on between their meals.

The rich tea has become one of the most popular biscuits in the UK and is particularly good as a tea-dunker. Many supermarkets and biscuit makers produce their own varieties, and the biscuit has also developed a surprising following on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta.

Ginger Nut

Another biscuit with a long history, ginger nuts were reportedly enjoyed in the UK from as early as the 1840s and they were the best selling biscuit produced by the firm Huntley and Palmers between 1933 and the end of the Second World War. These days, they are widely eaten in England, the UK and in many other parts of the English-speaking world, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

The ginger nut's hard texture makes it the ideal biscuit for dunking, which helps to explain its enduring popularity in England. Given how tough this biscuit can be on the teeth, a little light dunking is often advised to loosen it up. In some countries, ginger nuts are baked to an even harder texture and can sometimes be moulded into different shapes before being baked.

Chocolate Digestives

Digestive biscuits coated with chocolate have long been popular throughout the UK and can feature milk, dark or white chocolate. First produced in 1925 and known as the Chocolate Homewheat Digestive, other varieties seen over the years include the basic biscuit with chocolate shavings throughout, chocolate chip, caramel chocolate, orange-flavoured chocolate and mint chocolate. So dominant has the chocolate digestive been in English culture that in 2009 it was named the most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea.

Jammie Dodger

Such is the long established English biscuit tradition that the Jammie Dodger is the newest biscuit on this list, despite being made for the first time in the 1960s. It was first produced by the Burton's Biscuits company, who have made a variety of well known biscuits over the years, but this is without a doubt the most attractive of their classic products.

The Jammie Dodger is based on the simple idea of bringing together two shortcake biscuits with heart shaped holes that reveal a jam filling. The jam is often described as raspberry flavour although it is not technically raspberry jam, as it has to be sufficiently adhesive to keep the two biscuit halves together. The design is a throwback to an earlier time, referencing the Queen of Hearts from the Lewis Carroll stories. A particular favourite with children, the Jammie Dodger continues to hold its own in a competitive market.

The English biscuit today

The six above are supermarket biscuits, and that is rather the point of them: mass production is what put a biscuit next to every cup of tea in England. But the county bakeries never went away, and several of them are still working to recipes that would be recognisable to a Victorian.

Farmhouse Biscuits have been baking in Nelson, Lancashire since 1964, still cutting and packing by hand. Miller's are made in Derbyshire and are built for cheese rather than tea, from the fig and sultana toasts down to the charcoal wafers. Cartwright and Butler put theirs in the tins that end up in Christmas hampers, and Kent and Fraser bake savoury biscuits in Kent.

You can find all of them in the confectionery section, and the ones meant for a cheeseboard rather than a cup of tea are gathered under crackers for cheese. There is a tea collection too, if you want something English to dunk them into.