It’s official. The world’s perfect cup of tea is Earl Grey with milk, no sugar, best enjoyed while dunking a Digestive biscuit and reading a good book, says a VisitBritain survey.

It has long been clear that a nice cup of tea is Britain’s favourite hot drink. But VisitBritain has set out to discover whether the rest of the world shares our enthusiasm and, if so, how our international friends like to enjoy the refreshing beverage.

VisitBritain asked fans of our award winning Facebook page ‘‘LoveUK’’ around the world five key questions about how they like to drink their tea. Did they prefer it with or without milk, with how many sugars, what did they like doing while enjoying it and perhaps most importantly what kind of biscuit they nibble as they sip?

Well over 1,200 tea-loving respondents from across the globe took part in our social media survey and the results surprised us.

Opinion was fiercely divided throughout the study, with 58 per cent of respondents insisting on the importance of drinking tea with milk. Laure Voirin from France declared that she ‘liked it with milk, a la British’. Another respondent from Asia claimed ‘I drink tea with milk in England but without when in Japan’.

Among those keenest on taking tea in the British style were respondents from Germany followed by tea addicts in the US, Canada and Brazil.

However, the world appears not to have much of a sweet tooth. Some 46 per cent of respondents preferred no sugar, making unsweetened tea the most popular option, 27 per cent favoured just one tea spoon followed by 19 per cent who opted for two teaspoons and seven per cent for three.

But what is the world’s favourite type of tea?

This was a much tighter contest. Surprisingly 36 per cent of respondents made Earl Grey the most popular tea of choice followed closely behind by English Breakfast with 31 per cent and Green tea in third with 10 per cent. Darjeeling won 13 per cent of the votes, fruit tea 16 per cent, Orange Pekoe seven per cent, Assam and Lapsang Souchong on seven per cent, with 20 per cent saying they preferred some ‘‘other’’ sort of tea.

English Breakfast was most popular with the British respondents as well as many of our close European neighbours. But Earl Grey received many British votes and this variety proved extremely popular across South East Asia and their votes swung the final verdict.

A ‘Treky’ from Connecticut was particularly enamoured of drinking a nice cup of British Earl Grey tea under the influence of the cult show. ‘How can you go wrong with Earl Grey. “Tea Earl Grey, hot.” Captain Pickard’s standard order on Star Trek: The Next Generation’ he said.

Foreign respondents marvelled at the array of British made biscuits that are traditionally associated with tea. But which one came up top trumps in the dunking stakes? According to this research 29 per cent of the world prefers to dunk a Digestive biscuit into their tea. The closest biscuit rival is the chocolate chip cookie, pulling in just over half as many votes with 15 per cent. Custard creams, one of the greatest British biscuits, came a distant third with 8 per cent followed by a host of other options such as hobnobs, Jaffa Cakes and Ginger biscuits. (Source: www.visitbritain.com)