'I dunked McVitie's, Tesco, M&S, Aldi and Sainsbury's digestives to see which held up in tea longest'

"Do you ever dip your biscuit into your tea and it breaks? I swear to God... you never get over that." So spoke the great Peter Kay in Manchester Arena in front of 20,000 laughing fans. Kay's gag struck a chord because it's true. Tea and biscuits is our traditional breaktime and dipping said biscuit into tea so that it's nice, soggy and melts in the mouth is a disgustingly British idea of a treat.

But watching the beautiful, tea-soaked half of our biscuit fall and sink to the murky depths of our cups - leaving the useless, dry other half in our fingers and a spoonful of sludge to be scooped up later, still leads (me anyway) to a pitiful wail of despair. Oh lovely wet, saturated biscuit... how scrumptious you might have been.

So, to spare me from further heartache, what biscuit is best for dunking? Hobnobs are like the SAS of tea dipping, while we all know rich tea falls apart at the first drop. Somewhere in the middle are digestives, strong and stable but liable to become dropouts if left in the mug for too long (there's an analogy for child rearing in there somewhere). Here, I compare digestives from McVitie's, Tesco, M&S, Aldi and Sainsbury's to see which held up in my tea the longest.

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McVitie's - 10 seconds

Founded nearly 200 years ago in Edinburgh, McVitie's is by far Britain's most famous biscuit brand and their digestives are a particular staple of biscuit tins around the country. Plucking my first digestive from the packet, the first thing I notice is they are quite big - I need my widest mug in order to fit half of the biscuit into it.

After a good five seconds of soaking in the cup, I lift it out and start counting. It's a strong one... I wonder if it will ever break and aah! Ten seconds. Pretty impressive and more than enough time to gobble it up before it drops.

Tesco - 6 seconds

Now on to our next range of digestives. Tesco's seems to be every so slightly the smallest in diameter of our digestives and it fits nice and snugly into the cup.

Five seconds of bathing in tea and we're ready to go. It's looking a little wobbly as soon as I pull it out, I think this is a dropper. Start counting, one, two, three... and we get to six and it plops into the cup. Strangely, the dropped half remains smoothly intact as I scoop it out with my spoon, fancy that.

M&S - 11 seconds

Made with demerara sugar, don't you know? I'm not venturing into taste much this week, but these are by far the sweetest. M&S digestives are also the only supermarket brand to have their logo proudly engraved on the biscuit.

Into the cup and here we go. This is surprisingly tough, I expect it to collapse quite quickly but it makes a whole 11 seconds before dropping off. I go to retrieve it but alas, all I can find are disintegrated bits of debris. A long-laster, but when it drops, it's gone for good.

Aldi - 13 seconds

Now I don't hold out much hope for Aldi. To be honest, I'm a bit biscuited out at this point. But my professionalism and commitment to scientific fairness means I cut no corners. I count a full five seconds in the cup and start the timer.

One, two, three... my boredom starts to wane as I wonder how long this can go on for, Aldi you are full of surprises! This biscuit is built like Fort Knox. Will it ever drop? An astonishing 13 seconds and it finally happens.

Sainsbury's - 7 seconds

On to our final digestives and I can tell you Sainsbury's is a big boy, this is the widest digestive of them all. I can't fit it all into the cup, so I'm forced to nibble a smidgen off it first in order to place half of it underwater.

Five seconds of wallowing in tea and we're ready. It's looks pretty sturdy, I think I'd have time to lift it to my mouth. We get to seven seconds and the inevitable happens. Ah, I thought it would last longer but hey, it still beat Tesco.

And the winner is...

Aldi! Our favourite budget grocery store beat McVities, M&S and two of the big four supermarkets with the strongest digestive biscuit, fortified like a brick outhouse, truly up there with the hobnob for tea dunk medals. And as for how they all tasted? Well, curiously... they all tasted just like digestives, all of them. Exactly.

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