The British Biscuit Brand We Won't Buy Again — Where's The Flavor?

British cuisine sometimes gets a bad rap, but one food many people can agree tastes better across the pond is biscuits (aka cookies, for the Americans). These crumbly, cracker-like cookies are a British culinary classic best enjoyed with a piping hot cuppa English breakfast tea (which is not the same as Irish breakfast tea). However, while there are a plethora of delectable British biscuits on the market, just being from the U.K. doesn't mean a biscuit is guaranteed to taste great. Case in point: We ranked 13 iconic British biscuits from worst to best, and Burton's Rich Tea Biscuits came in dead last.

It might be a historical myth that British food is boring and flavorless, but in this case it rings true. Our taste tester found the flaky, semi-sweet tea cookies superlatively bland and brittle. "We're talking zero flavor," our reviewer wrote. "Even when dunked, these seem to somehow suck flavor out of the tea rather than enhance it."

Burton's is a British biscuit icon whose history dates back to the 19th century when George Burton first started baking his namesake tea cookies. However, the company wasn't officially established until 1935, when George's grandson Joseph founded Burton's Gold Medal Biscuits. Burton's has gone through several sales and mergers over the decades since, but these days it's known as Fox's Burton Companies (FBC) and is owned by Ferrero.

FBC is behind several classic British biscuit products, including Jammie Dodgers, which took second-to-last place in our ranking (our taste tester found the jam bizarrely chewy, akin to Starburst candy). However, it's not all bad news for Burton's — our reviewer found the company's Digestive Sweetmeal Biscuits quite a bit better, saying, "These have a crunchy, satisfying texture and a flavor that offers both a slight sweetness as well as significant wheat notes ... they're a solid everyday choice." (In case the name is throwing you off, here's everything Americans need to know about digestive biscuits). But no matter how the cookie crumbles, if you enjoy flavor in your tea and biscuits Burton's Rich Tea Biscuits probably aren't worth your dough.