Tea bags made a start in the US in the 1920s but didn't arrive in the UK until the 1950s (delayed by a couple of world wars but eventually kickstarted by Tetleys). It took a while for them to catch on, in the 1960s only 3% of households used teabags, fast forward to the early 2000s and 96% of households use teabags. But the question is, have we sacrificed taste and quality for convenience?
Tea bags and the 'Tea' inside them
In the interests of convenience the tea inside a standard tea bag is extremely small in order to make the surface area of the leaf as small as possible so that the brew time is reduced to seconds rather than minutes. This size of tea is collected using two methods, the first is dust, this is low quality, inexpensive tea leaves ground to dust. The second is fannings grade tea, during the packaging of quality loose leaf tea, anything that is left after the full leaves are collected is classed as fannings. This is a quality tea but in a much smaller leaf that brews quickly.
Both are a huge step down in quality from full loose leaf teas, as the leaves are broken into smaller pieces they loose much of their essential oils and therefore loose their taste and aroma. Also when steeped they release more tannins than whole leaf teas and so create a bitter more astringent brew.
Tea bags and the environment and your health
Most tea bags have micro plastics in the bag or in the edges in order to be able to heat seal the bags, when a tea bag is thrown in the bin or in the compost these plastics end up being released into the environment and we are all informed many times what plastic is doing to the environment. The other danger with plastics in tea bags is a lot closer to home and even more scary, these harmful and toxic micro plastics and nano plastics are actually released into the cup of tea due to the water being heated to between 90 and 100 degrees. The plastics in the tea bag end up in your body where they can cause all sorts of issues, microplastic particles have been found in human organs, including the brain, heart, lungs and liver.
Almost the same convenience, much better taste
So standard tea bags are out, there are many 'eco friendly' tea bags out there with the claim to contain zero plastic, a BBC news article in 2020 outed some of the main brands as containing plastic, despite the fact that some stated plastic free on their packaging and websites, since this was published many are trying even harder to do better, however the best option is to make the switch to loose leaf tea, after all you will be drinking a far superior tasting, healthier brew and can sit back and relax confident you are most certainly not ingesting plastic. So how do we make it simple instead of going back to the 1950s tea pot ceremonies? The simplest option is an in cup strainer - easy to use, easy to clean, the leaves have masses of room to expand giving you the maximum health benefits and great taste that comes from a quality cup of tea. The used leaves can be put in the compost or even straight on the soil in the garden or indoor pot plants as your plants will love the nutrients in the leaves as much as you do.
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