How Many Calories in a Rich Tea Biscuit?
How many calories in a rich tea? One biscuit is 38 kcal, and the biscuit itself sits at 444 kcal per 100 g. Two alongside a mug of tea comes to 76 kcal. It feels light because it genuinely is small: a single rich tea weighs roughly 8.3 g.
You'd need to walk about 8 minutes to burn the 38 calories in one biscuit (8.3 g).
How long does it take to burn off a Rich tea biscuit?
One biscuit (8.3 g) is 38 kcal. Enter your weight and the amount you ate to see how long it takes you to burn that off:
lb
| Activity | Time to burn 38 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 8 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 5 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 5 min |
| Jogging | 4 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 8 min |
Times are for a 154 lb (11 st) adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (8.3 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Rich tea nutrition at a glance
- UK portions and what they cost
- How the rich tea brands differ
- How does a rich tea compare?
- The diet biscuit myth
- Most popular rich tea brands in the United Kingdom
- Rich tea FAQs
Rich tea nutrition at a glance
| Nutrient | Per biscuit (8.3 g) | Per 100 g | %RI per biscuit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 38 kcal / 159 kJ | 444 kcal / 1,858 kJ | 2% |
| Protein | 0.5 g | 6.4 g | 1% |
| Carbohydrate | 6.3 g | 75.4 g | 2% |
| of which sugars | 1.7 g | 20.3 g | 2% |
| Fat | 1.3 g | 15.1 g | 2% |
| Fibre | 0.2 g | 2.7 g | no set RI |
| Salt | 0.05 g | 0.6 g | 1% |
%RI is the share of an adult reference intake: 2,000 kcal, 70 g fat, 260 g carbohydrate, 90 g sugars, 50 g protein, 6 g salt.
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from CoFID, the UK government’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified August 2026. How we verify our data →
The figure worth pausing on is fat. At 15.1 g per 100 g a rich tea carries less than any other biscuit in the classic tin. The trade-off: three quarters of it is carbohydrate and a fifth is sugar.
UK portions and what they cost
Nobody eats 100 g of rich tea, which is why the per-100 g figure is a poor guide to your day. Count biscuits instead.
| What you take | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| One biscuit | 8.3 g | 38 kcal |
| Two with a brew | 16.6 g | 76 kcal |
| Three | 24.9 g | 114 kcal |
| Four | 33.2 g | 152 kcal |
Two at 76 kcal is one of the cheapest ways in British snacking to have something alongside a hot drink. Four is a different animal: 152 kcal and roughly 6.7 g of sugar, which is where the NHS advice on cutting down on sugar starts to bite. Black tea is nothing on its own; the milk is not, so log the splash too.
How the rich tea brands differ
Rich tea is a commodity biscuit and the labels sit in a narrow band. Aldi's Belmont matches the CoFID figure exactly, McVitie's runs slightly richer, Tower Gate is heaviest.
| Product | Per 100 g | On an 8.3 g biscuit |
|---|---|---|
| McVitie's Rich Tea | 460 kcal | 38 kcal |
| Tower Gate (Aldi) | 470 kcal | 39 kcal |
| Belmont (Aldi) | 444 kcal | 37 kcal |
| CoFID, semi-sweet biscuits | 444 kcal | 37 kcal |
Top to bottom that is 26 kcal per 100 g, or two calories a biscuit. Buy on price and on which one survives the dunk, not on the label.
A naming note that trips people up: CoFID has no "rich tea" entry. The category is "biscuits, semi-sweet", and rich tea is its archetype, so a tracker showing you semi-sweet has found the right row.
How does a rich tea compare?
| Biscuit | Typical piece | Calories per piece | Per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rich tea | 1 biscuit (8.3 g) | 38 kcal | 444 kcal |
| Biscoff | 1 biscuit | 38 kcal | 485 kcal |
| Chocolate chip cookie | 1 small cookie | 52 kcal | 471 kcal |
| Bourbon | 1 biscuit | 68 kcal | 485 kcal |
| KitKat | two fingers | 106 kcal | 514 kcal |
The verdict: for the cheapest biscuit habit, rich tea and Biscoff tie at 38 kcal, and rich tea is the one you can take two of and stay under 80 kcal. If you want it to feel like a treat, have the bourbon at 68 kcal, because two extra rich teas cost nearly as much and satisfy less.
Against the other classics it wins outright per biscuit: a custard cream is around 60 kcal, a digestive roughly 70. Lightest dunker in the tin is the one thing this biscuit is genuinely best at.
The diet biscuit myth
"Plain biscuit, so it must be the healthy one." This is where the per-100 g figure earns its keep: 444 kcal per 100 g is not a low-calorie food by any measure.
The lightness is a portion-size effect, nothing more. Eat eight while the kettle boils twice and that is 304 kcal of mostly refined flour and sugar, with almost no protein and 1.8 g of fibre. Biscuits sit outside the NHS Eatwell Guide segments for a reason.
Salt is the quieter figure, and one most biscuit pages ignore: 0.6 g per 100 g, but only 0.05 g a biscuit, so most of the packet would go before it registered against the 6 g daily maximum in the NHS salt guidance.
Used sensibly it is a good tool. Small, predictable, and two of them close off an afternoon craving for less than a slice of toast.
Most popular rich tea brands in the United Kingdom
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United Kingdom, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each label. The whole shelf sits inside a sixteen-calorie band per 100 g.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| McVitie’s Rich Tea | 460 kcal |
| Tesco Rich Tea Fingers | 460 kcal |
| Asda Rich Tea | 456 kcal |
| McVitie’s Rich Tea Lights | 452 kcal |
| Belmont Rich Tea (Aldi) | 444 kcal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels.
Rich tea FAQs
How many calories are in one rich tea biscuit?
A single rich tea biscuit is 38 kcal (159 kJ), based on a biscuit of about 8.3 g. That works out at 444 kcal per 100 g. Own-brand versions land between 37 and 39 kcal a biscuit, so counting every rich tea as 38 kcal is accurate enough for daily logging.
How many calories in two rich tea biscuits with tea?
Two rich tea biscuits are 76 kcal, and black tea adds effectively nothing. The milk does count: whatever you pour in should be logged separately. Two biscuits and a brew is one of the lower-cost hot-drink snacks in a British kitchen, at well under 100 kcal before milk.
How many calories in a McVitie's Rich Tea?
McVitie's Rich Tea is 460 kcal per 100 g on the label, which is 38 kcal for one biscuit. It sits slightly above the CoFID figure of 444 kcal per 100 g for semi-sweet biscuits. The difference is about one calorie per biscuit, so either number will do.
Are rich tea biscuits healthy?
Rich tea biscuits are 444 kcal per 100 g, with 20.3 g of sugar and only 2.7 g of fibre, so they are a treat rather than a staple. The saving grace is the portion: at 38 kcal each they fit into a day easily. Two with a drink is a reasonable habit; half a packet is not.
Rich tea or digestive: which has fewer calories?
Rich tea wins comfortably at 38 kcal a biscuit against roughly 70 kcal for a digestive, mostly because a digestive is nearly twice the weight. Per 100 g the gap narrows a lot. If you eat biscuits by the biscuit rather than by the gram, rich tea is the cheaper habit.
What is the lowest calorie biscuit in the tin?
Among the classics, rich tea is the lightest at 38 kcal, tied with a Biscoff and ahead of a custard cream at about 60 kcal and a bourbon at 68 kcal. It also carries the least fat of the three traditional dunkers, at 15.1 g per 100 g against a cream-filled biscuit's 23.3 g.
How much sugar is in a rich tea biscuit?
One rich tea biscuit contains about 1.7 g of sugar, from 20.3 g per 100 g. Four biscuits is roughly 6.7 g. That is modest next to a chocolate bar, but it is free sugar, which is the type the NHS suggests keeping to 30 g a day for adults.
Are rich tea biscuits good for weight loss?
At 38 kcal each they fit a calorie target more easily than most biscuits, which is a real advantage. They contain almost no protein and little fibre, so they do not hold hunger off. Treat them as a small planned pleasure, not as the thing you reach for when you are actually hungry.
Similar foods
- Milky Way — 96 kcal per 21.5 g bar
- Rice Krispies Square — 119 kcal a bar
- Crunchie — 186 kcal per bar
- Popcorn — 141 kcal per 30 g bag
- Wagon Wheel — 160 kcal per wheel
- Oreo — 52 kcal per biscuit
Count it without the maths
BodyPal logs biscuits, brews and everything else from a single photo, so two rich teas at the kettle take a second to record.
