Recently, Testpoint conducted a test on shortbread biscuits in Rome. The test, conducted in a central location, involved not only tasting the biscuits as is, but also dunking them in a hot beverage—milk or tea, of the participant’s choice.
The 100 participants tasted, dunked, and evaluated three different types of biscuits: the test product and two competitors.
A central location tasting test
What do we look for in a breakfast biscuit? Not only that it is sweet but not cloying, that it is friable but not crumbly, that it has a delicious flavor and remind us of grandma’s biscuits, but above all that it dips easily into milk or tea, adequately absorbing our favorite breakfast beverage, without turning into mush in a matter of seconds that sinks miserably to the bottom of the cup.
How do you determine if a biscuit has achieved the magical alchemy that allows for perfect dunking? With a centrally located taste test!
Testpoint recently conducted a taste test in Rome involving dipping breakfast biscuits.
We’ll tell you how it was done.
The first step was to recruit 100 people who regularly eat biscuits for breakfast (they had to eat them at least once a week).
The recruited participants, a mix of men and women of various ages, went to a centrally located meeting place in groups of 10. There, they were served the biscuits to taste: the biscuits were served on small white plates labelled with a code, thus completely anonymous, accompanied by a hot drink—milk or tea—that the participants had indicated as their usual breakfast beverage.
After tasting and dunking each type of biscuit, the recruited participants were asked to answer a few simple questions in an online questionnaire on a tablet. The questions concerned the biscuit’s characteristics: texture, sweetness, crispness, and, above all, its dunking properties, such as how well it absorbs the drink and how long it stays in the mouth without becoming mushy. At the end of the three tastings, the questionnaire asked for a comparison of the products and an overall rating of satisfaction.
