Gingernut vertical

Participants tasted, ranked, and rated Arnott's Ginger Nut biscuits from each of 4 production regions in Australia (NSW/ACT, QLD, SA/WA/NT, VIC/TAS). Participants were introduced to the task and were exposed to a Griffin's Gingernuts The Original biscuit ('the ultimate dunker'). Griffin's acted as the canonical gingernut for rating 'on-style' in subsequent taste tests. During the tasting rounds each gingernut was presented to participants without its origin identified (simply labelled A, B, C, or D). Participants were supplied with Tea Leaves earl grey tea to accompany their biscuits. Discussion was permitted but participants were encouraged to avoid the topic of gingernut taste/preference.Tasting was conducted in two rounds: first blinded (i.e., with eyes closed) and then unblinded. After each tasting the participant rated the gingernut on 6 criteria:1. Overall flavour: 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good)2. Overall texture/mouthfeel: 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good)3. Sweetness: 1 (very low) to 5 (very high)4. Gingerness: 1 (very low) to 5 (very high)5. Tea-ability: 1 (very low) to 5 (very high)6. On-style: 1 (very low) to 5 (very high)In the unblinded tasting, participants also rated each gingernut on overall appearance from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good).At the end of each round participants subjectively ranked the gingernuts (including Griffin's) from 1st (best) to 5th (worst).At the conclusion of the study the origin of each gingernut was revealed and we all agreed to avoid gingernuts for the foreseeable future.