Although English people are famous for their love of tea, I did not start drinking it till I was eight. I would never have started if it had not been for the English tradition of elevenses. At eleven o'clock every morning people stop what they are doing and put on the kettle. And they take out their biscuits. The only problem is there is a rule: no tea means no biscuits. You cannot get one without the other.
So, at the age of eight, I became a tea-drinker. It wasn't easy. In England, we don't brew tea, we stew it. There seems to be a belief that the longer you leave the tea in the teapot, the better it will taste. As we wait for the tea, all eyes turn to the biscuit tray. Everyone is thinking the same thing: how many Rich Tea biscuits will I get today?
Many foreigners do not understand the attraction of this simple dry biscuit. They complain it has no flavour and crumbles into little pieces when you bite it. Let me tell you the secret: the Rich Tea biscuit tastes like blotting paper if you eat it dry; it sticks to your teeth and to the roof of your mouth. But dunk it into your tea and it tastes wonderful.
It is not quite so easy as it sounds: you have to know how long to dunk the biscuit. If you dunk it for too short a time, the sponge-like biscuit is still dry on the inside. If you leave it in your tea too long however, the biscuit will dissolve. Not only does this spoil the flavour of your tea, it also makes you look very stupid in front of your friends. 'Look at him! He doesn't know how to dunk his biscuit!'
Some snobbish people say that dunking biscuits in tea is very vulgar. They believe that the only things you may put in tea are milk, sugar or lemon. I advise you to ignore such snobbery. As we say in English, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Try a Rich Tea by itself, dry. Then try one after you have dunked it in your tea. If after this simple test you prefer your biscuit dry, I'll eat my hat (after I've dunked it in my tea, of course!).