Yorkshire Tea's New Flavours Are Here: Sticky Toffee Brew, Victoria Sponge Brew, and a Toast to Toast & Jam

Yorkshire Tea has put a pudding in a teabag. Two puddings, if you count a Victoria sponge, and I do.

Sticky Toffee Brew and Victoria Sponge Brew are the two newest flavoured black teas from the people in Harrogate. They launched in the UK earlier this year and we carry both here in Halifax, so you can order either one today. Each is a box of 40 bags, 112 g, and the ingredients are black tea and natural flavouring, nothing else. Both are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. The maker says 4 to 5 minutes in the mug, with or without milk. Underneath the pudding it is still black tea, strong enough to take milk, and I will come back to that because it is the question I get asked most.

They join a tea shelf that already carries more Yorkshire Tea than any sensible Canadian shop should, which tells you a fair bit about who comes through our door.

What the two new ones actually taste of

The clearest description I have found comes from Bettys, Yorkshire Tea's sister company, which sells both online and bothers to write tasting notes.

Sticky Toffee Brew is listed by Bettys as "rich toffee, sweet caramel and a hint of sticky date", in "a smooth, balanced brew". The pack copy asks you to imagine sinking your favourite spoon into a great big bowl of sticky toffee pudding, and ends with "Dig in!" The natural flavouring is 5% of what is in the bag, and this one carries the Rainforest Alliance mark. Kate Halloran, Yorkshire Tea's tea development manager, told The Grocer the idea came from pub Sunday dinners that finish with "custard-soaked sponge, toffee and melted ice cream". Reading that on a grey Halifax morning is a small act of cruelty.

Victoria Sponge Brew is "soft sponge, sweet vanilla and a hint of fruit", with a "vanilla-y, jammy twist", and Bettys says it is "especially lovely with milk". Halloran said it was one of the first ideas on the table back when Biscuit Brew was being created, the aim being "the jam, the vanilla sponge and the taste of icing sugar". That was 2018. Eight years to get a sponge right. I have never waited that long for a cake and I do not intend to start.

Victoria Sponge has already made the jump to Canada with a bilingual label, "Thé noir, arôme naturel", which is the most Canadian thing a Yorkshire teabag has ever done.

One warning on names. Some UK retailers list the toffee one as Sticky Toffee Pudding Brew. The maker, Bettys and the trade press all call it Sticky Toffee Brew. Same box, same tea, one extra word.

If you are buying one, I would take Victoria Sponge for the middle of the afternoon and Sticky Toffee for after dinner, when you want pudding and have decided against actual pudding. Nobody asked, but there you are.

Do they still taste like tea?

Yes. This is the bit worth saying twice, because the flavoured teas on most Canadian shelves are herbal, and taste the way a scented candle smells.

These are black tea. Yorkshire Tea says of its Caramelised Biscuit Brew that "behind that lovely flavour lies a cracking, full-strength cup of Yorkshire Tea", blended from teas grown in Africa and India, with roughly 48 mg of caffeine per cup. There is no sugar in the box. The pudding part is a scent and a note on the tongue. The rest is the same brew you would put milk in on a Tuesday morning.

My own view: brewed for the full five minutes with milk, they taste like a strong cup of tea drunk next to a cake. Brewed for two minutes without milk, they taste like a weak cup of tea drunk next to a cake, so do not do that.

Every flavoured brew so far, in order

The Grocer calls this the Proper Breaks range; Yorkshire Tea's own site files them under speciality black tea. Either way, the family has grown slowly, roughly one new idea every couple of years, and I think that restraint is why none of them feel like a gimmick.

Malty Biscuit Brew is the original and, for my money, still the best of them. It started life as plain Biscuit Brew and picked up the "Malty" at some point I have not been able to pin down, I suspect to stop people confusing it with its caramel sibling.

Caramelised Biscuit Brew launched in July 2024 with a two-day pop-up on Bateman Street in London that had giant teapots, caramel clouds and telephones playing ASMR. I am told this was marketing. If you like Lotus biscuits, this is your one. It is also the one I would dunk into, on the grounds that two biscuits are better than one. Our field guide to British biscuits covers the dunking question at some length.

Cherry Bakewell Brew arrived in July 2025. For the launch, the welcome sign into Bakewell was changed to read "Twinned with Yorkshire Tea" and the Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop became, for a day, The New Original Bakewell Brew Shop, with Liam Charles from Bake Off behind the counter. Halloran said she "loved Cherry Bakewell tarts when I was a kid", which is the most honest product brief I have read. We carry it alongside the two new ones.

Then there is Bedtime Brew, which is a different animal: a decaf blend for the evening. It predates the lot, arriving in 2016 by Wikipedia's reckoning, alongside a Breakfast Brew and a Breaktime Brew that I have never been able to get. Bedtime is the one people ask us for by name, and the one a big chain in Canada will never stock, because it would mean carrying a second Yorkshire Tea box.

Toast & Jam Brew: a moment's silence, please

It was announced on 21 September 2020, created by Kate Halloran, and described as "all the loveliness of jam on toast without the crumbs". The idea was to send you into your day "with a spring in your step and a smile in your soul", which is a lot to ask of a teabag at seven in the morning, and yet it managed it. It first appeared in Asda before rolling out more widely across the UK.

When somebody asked Yorkshire Tea what flavour of jam it was, the answer was "It's a secret". That is still the official position.

Then in 2024 it was gone. People assumed a shortage. Yorkshire Tea put them straight: "We're afraid it's being discontinued but it's still available in Tesco, Amazon and Ocado for a little while." No reason was ever published. The press understood it was making way for Caramelised Biscuit Brew, but that is inference, not a statement.

The grief was genuine. One fan tweeted "Help this is a genuine emergency!" Expats were having friends in the UK buy up what was left and post it over. The old Toast & Jam page on Yorkshire Tea's website now quietly redirects you to Cherry Bakewell Brew, which is a bit like being set up on a date by someone who has not fully processed their last relationship.

And here is the detail that gets me. Bettys sells the new Victoria Sponge Brew as all the taste of the cake "without the crumbs". That is the Toast & Jam line, word for word, handed down to the new arrival like a coat. Somebody in Harrogate remembers.

I have found no statement from Yorkshire Tea about bringing it back. I have also found nothing saying they will not. Big brands revive things when enough people keep asking, so I will say it plainly: if Toast & Jam Brew comes back, it will be on our shelf the week it lands.

In the meantime, there is always the real thing. We carry Warburtons bread for the toast half of the problem, and our jam collection can deal with the other half.

Make yourself the actual toast and jam, then put one of the current Yorkshire Tea flavoured brews beside it. Malty Biscuit Brew, Caramelised Biscuit Brew, Cherry Bakewell Brew, Sticky Toffee Brew and Victoria Sponge Brew are all considerably easier to get hold of than a box of Toast & Jam now.

It is not quite the same thing. Then again, toast, jam and a mug of Yorkshire Tea is a fairly decent consolation prize.

The proper ones: Yorkshire Tea, Gold and Decaf

All the puddings in the world would not matter if the plain red box was not any good, and it is very good. Yorkshire Tea became the UK's number one tea brand in 2019 and by the end of 2025 it was the top brew by value and by volume, with sales of £192.6m. It got there by selling the same red box to the same people for nearly fifty years and refusing to be clever about it, which is a business plan I can respect from behind this counter.

A note for the curious Canadian: none of it is grown in Yorkshire. It is blended and packed in Harrogate from teas grown in Africa and India. Yorkshire has many fine qualities. A tea-growing climate is not one of them.

Some of you will remember how it got to number one. Bill Nighy voiced "Try It, You'll See" back in 2007. Then from 2017 came "Where everything's done proper", with Sir Michael Parkinson running job interviews at the office, the Kaiser Chiefs playing "I Predict a Riot" as the hold music, and Dynamo levitating to pass down a box of teabags. Sean Bean gave a new-starter induction speech that built to "do it for Yorkshire" and then added, "Oh, and fire drill is Thursday at three." Sarah Lancashire turned up too. The campaign won a Grand Effie in 2023, on evidence that the brand's share had nearly doubled, from 17% to 33%. It also made a fair few of us homesick, which I assume was not in the brief.

Yorkshire Gold is the one I put in front of a guest I am trying to impress, and the one I would hand to a Canadian who has only ever had tea from a bag with a string on it. That is my opinion rather than the maker's description, so take it as such. The red box is what I drink most days, because it is what I have always drunk.

Yorkshire Tea Decaf is, by Yorkshire Tea's own 2023 figures, the UK's number one decaf tea brand, with almost 29% of grocery value sales. If you have given up on decaf because every one you tried tasted of wet cardboard, this is the one to try before you give up for good.

We carry the 250 g loose leaf as well, for the teapot people. The one I cannot get you is Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water, which is a UK-only blend. I have asked. The answer is still Yorkshire.

How to make a proper brew, according to the people who make it

Yorkshire Tea publishes its own five steps, and they apply to every box above, puddings included.

1. Run the tap for a moment so the water is aerated, fill the kettle, and boil it once. Not twice. Reboiled water makes a flat cup.
2. Bag in the mug, pour the water on, give it a brief stir.
3. Wait 4 to 5 minutes. Their suggestion for passing the time is to "munch a sneaky biscuit". I have never needed telling.
4. Squeeze the bag gently, once. In their words: "if you really mash it, it'll taste bitter."
5. Add what you like. They favour semi-skimmed or whole milk. Over here I reach for the 2%.

For a teapot: warm the pot first, use two bags for a regular pot, or for loose tea "one teaspoon per person and one for the pot". On the eternal milk question, Yorkshire Tea's position is milk last in a mug, and in a teapot "the order doesn't matter at all". I am passing that on, not endorsing it. I know some of you have strong feelings.

Four minutes is longer than it sounds. Most of us pull the bag at the first sign of colour and wonder why it tastes of nothing. Set a timer the first time. After that your hand learns.

Who are Taylors of Harrogate?

The name on the side of the box is older than the tea. Charles Taylor started C. E. Taylor & Sons in 1886, supplying tea and coffee across Yorkshire. In 1919 a Swiss man called Frederick Belmont opened the first Bettys Café Tea Room in Harrogate. Bettys bought Taylors in 1962, and in 1977 the combined business launched a new blend and called it Yorkshire Tea.

The whole thing is still owned by Belmont's family. Three brands under one roof: Bettys, Taylors of Harrogate and Yorkshire Tea. The company's own history page has the dates. Everything of theirs we bring in sits in our Taylors of Harrogate collection, which is a short list with a lot of red in it.

One last thought before the kettle. A box of tea has a funny way of stopping being groceries and becoming a stocking filler at this time of year, and a 40-bag box of Sticky Toffee is exactly the sort of thing that makes a British parent in Canada go quiet for a second on Christmas morning. If that is the plan, our Christmas collection has the rest of the stocking sorted.

Questions people ask us

Can I buy Yorkshire Tea in Canada?

Yes. We ship it from Halifax to anywhere in Canada, including the red box, Gold, Decaf and the flavoured brews. Delivery details are on our shipping page.

Is Sticky Toffee Brew the same as Sticky Toffee Pudding Brew?

Yes. Some UK retailers add the word "Pudding" to the name. The maker calls it Sticky Toffee Brew, and it is the same box of 40 bags.

Do the flavoured Yorkshire Tea brews have caffeine?

Yes, they are black tea. Yorkshire Tea gives roughly 48 mg per cup for Caramelised Biscuit Brew. Bedtime Brew is the decaf one.

Has Toast & Jam Brew been discontinued?

Yes. Yorkshire Tea confirmed it in 2024. No reason was published and no return has been announced, though we live in hope.

How long should I brew Yorkshire Tea?

Four to five minutes, in water that has been boiled once, with one gentle squeeze of the bag. The same goes for Sticky Toffee and Victoria Sponge.

Is Victoria Sponge Brew vegan?

Yes. Both new brews contain only black tea and natural flavouring and are listed by the maker as suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Kettle's on. Put a pudding in a mug and tell me I'm wrong.