Titanic Tea - prices vary, but you may want to avoid buying any in the Belfast Welcome Centre - updated with news of a price reduction

Although Belfast boat factories constructed hundreds of ships, one seems to have dominated the headlines! So needing to bring a small gift across to the US I decided that some Titanic merchandise would be appropriate: a book about the shipyard and the people who built the ill-fated liner, and a bag of Titanic tea.

Belfast Welcome Centre seemed like a good place to pick up Titanic tat until I choked at the £5.99 price for 80 locally blended tea bags.

Tesco proved a lot cheaper at £2.29 - though this was still 20-40p more expensive than other similar packets of non-Titanic branded tea.

I challenged a member of staff at the Welcome Centre about their exorbitant pricing - nearly three times the price of Tesco. "It's even dearer down in Titanic Belfast" he said.

So I checked out his claim - not true.

A quick shifty in the Titanic Belfast gift shop turned up the same tea bags for a modest £2.99 - half the price of the Welcome Centre.

While it's conceivable that the Welcome Centre don't sell too many boxes of tea - particularly at that price - the uncompetitive pricing seems a complete rip off, and one that takes advantages of tourists rather than offering value.

Update - around lunchtime, the Welcome Centre dropped their price to match Titanic Belfast!