A panel of "experienced" tea drinkers blind-tested varieties from supermarkets and fan favourites such as PG Tips and Tetley. Scroll through the Money blog for this plus more personal finance and consumer posts - and listen to a Daily podcast special on the Oasis tickets debacle as you do.
Friday 6 September 2024 06:51, UK
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The nation's favourite tea brand has been crowned - and there's a surprising winner.
According to a panel of Which? taste testers, Asda's Everyday Tea Bags (£1.20 for 80 bags) pipped its more expensive branded favourites to the post.
The panel gave it good marks for aroma and appearance, with 68% saying the tea had a perfect colour. Meanwhile, around half (49%) said it tasted "just right". It gave Asda's own tea bags an overall score of 72% - the highest rating of all tested.
Which? said the panel of 79 "experienced and committed tea drinkers" blind-tested 12 varieties from big-name supermarkets alongside fan favourites such as PG Tips, Tetley, Twinings and Yorkshire Tea.
During the blind test, the panel rated the taste, "mouthfeel", aroma and appearance of each and said what they liked and disliked about each one.
PG Tips Original (£3 for 80) and Tetley Original (£2.50 for 80 bags) came closely behind Asda's own-brand offering - both with a score of 71%.
Sainsbury's Red Label (£1.25 for 80 bags) was the third product to achieve an overall score of 71%.
Tied at the bottom of the table were Twinings Everyday (£4.80 for 80) and Tesco Original Tea (£1.25 for 80), with a score of 67%.
Natalie Hitchins, Which? head of home products and services, said: "A cup of tea is a daily essential for millions and many of us will passionately defend our favourite brand.
“Our results show that the bigger and more expensive brands aren't necessarily the best for taste - with a supermarket own-brand costing less than 2p per cup emerging ahead of rivals costing up to four times as much.
"The scores demonstrate that brands and supermarkets know you can't get a sub-standard cuppa past a nation of discerning tea drinkers."
Amazon's AI shopping assistant arrives in UK | Primark 'swap shops' | Second class postage changesAmazon has launched its AI-powered shopping assistant in the UK - after rolling out the feature in the US earlier this year.
Chatbot Rufus has knowledge of Amazon's product catalogue and some other information from across the web and is being deployed to answer shoppers' queries.
It will be available only to a small percentage of UK users, before being rolled out to a wider base at an unspecified later date.
Fast fashion giant Primark is launching a "swap shop" for customers to exchange used and vintage clothing in its stores.
It has teamed up with circular clothing company Verte to put on a limited run of the pop-ups this month.
Customers will be able to bring up to five items of adult clothing, bags, hats or scarves in good condition - which can then be swapped for digital tokens on the Verte app.
Those tokens can then be redeemed against other pre-used clothing.
The pop-ups will only run in select stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Royal Mail may not be obligated to deliver second class letters on a Saturday in future, under plans being considered by the industry regulator.
Ofcom, which launched a consultation on the company's universal service obligation (USO) earlier this year, said such a shift would protect priority deliveries, including first class mail, and help loss-making Royal Mail save cash.
Read more here.
2.7 million women in private sector missing out on enhanced maternity pay - surveyMillions of women working in the private sector are missing out on enhanced maternity pay compared with their peers in the public sector, according to new research.
A survey by HR data provider Brightmine found the vast majority (97%) of public sector firms offer enhanced pay, compared with 75% in the private sector.
Around 2.7 million female private sector workers are missing out on enhanced maternity pay, compared with just 149,400 in the public sector.
However, Brightmine said there were some positives, with the number of organisations offering a boosted pay package increasing by 10% in three years and more employers offering it as a day one entitlement.
The proportion of firms requiring a year of service has fallen from 37% in 2021 to 32%, it said.
Bar Huberman, Brightmine content manager for HR strategy and practice, said: "Some mothers decide to return to work much earlier than they would have liked after having a baby due to very little pay during maternity leave, which can take a toll on their health."
Firms going "above and beyond" the minimum requirement were likely to see better staff loyalty and engagement, she added.
Oasis have threatened to cancel resold tickets - but can they actually do it?Since announcing their monumental UK tour, Oasis have repeatedly warned fans against buying resold tickets from second-hand selling websites such as Viagogo - and going as far as saying the tickets would be cancelled.
But with hundreds of listings already sold on to concertgoers, can the band actually cancel the tickets - practically and legally?
It's a question we've asked the band's management, Ignition Management and Ticketmaster, one of the major sites that sold the tickets.
We received no response.
So we went to industry and legal experts to find out if they can make good on their threat.
Can the band track down second-hand tickets?
Customers who bought from Ticketmaster (who could have subsequently gone on to relist them elsewhere) were not required to supply any photo ID or anything outside basic personal details.
As a result, virtually everyone we spoke to suggested it would be difficult to identify, track down and cancel tickets that have been sold second-hand.
Joel Crouch, chief revenue officer at Fixr, the ticketing and event platform, said: "I don't see an obvious way to do that."
Once touts have bought and listed tickets for resale, he said, there's very little that can be done.
Some artists build resale clauses into contracts with promoters and ticket sites, meaning "we can send cease and desist letters to the platforms", but generally, "there are loopholes all over the shop" which allow the tickets to be moved on again.
"The secondary market becomes a dark art very quickly," he added.
'It's too late'
Benjamin Barrier, co-founder and chief strategy officer at DataDome, echoed the challenges promoters face.
"Career fraudsters will have advanced techniques to hide their identity," he said.
"They're likely to have rented a high quality residential IP address to avoid IP tracking, and they might also have created fraudulent accounts to hide their identity, or used several illegitimate accounts at one time."
These techniques make touts "virtually untraceable", Benjamin added, "so the only way of stopping them is by spotting them before they manage to get their hands on tickets".
"It's now too late to claw back these tickets - and promoters will struggle to make good on their threat."
What's the legal standpoint?
Whether the tickets can be cancelled if they're traced comes down to the T&Cs - somewhat predictably.
"Like members clubs and gyms, and provided their terms make it clear prior to sale, ticket sellers are allowed to provide goods and services to named buyers only - and they can lawfully cancel the contract if someone else subsequently tries to use the tickets," Prateek Swaika, partner at Boies Schiller, said.
In theory, "this also protects consumers from ticket touts and ensures that the majority of the purchase price paid goes to the artists and authorised agents rather than to scalpers".
However, as Benjamin from DataDome points out, it's only "likely to hit the legitimate fans who have paid thousands for second-hand tickets harder than the scammers themselves" - as they'll already have made their money.
What does Viagogo say?
Cris Miller, global managing director at Viagogo, says: "Every order on our platform is protected by our Viagogo guarantee.
"Any attempt to cancel tickets by the original sellers would be unfair to the fans who elected to shop on secure, transparent, and highly regulated resale marketplaces. This would be a clear example of anti-consumer and retaliatory behaviour and reinforces our longstanding concerns about competition in the primary market and the detrimental impact this has on British fans. The consequences of this market dominance have been seen over the past week.
"We welcome the CMA's announcement that it will investigate these practices and we continue to support industry collaboration to create a wider competitive market to the benefit of British consumers.
"Ultimately, we recognise that a comprehensive review of the entire ticketing industry is the best path forward to create meaningful change and prioritise fans."