With supermarket shelves stocked with the ‘ready to go’ tea bag options, it’s not surprising that most people have limited experience with loose leaf tea. So many don’t know what they’re missing out on! Here are some reasons why loose leaf tea should be the go-to for tea drinkers.
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Lower Quality - Teabags usually contain low grades teas, such as the dust and fannings which come off of the higher quality leaves saved for the premium tea market. Being such small pieces stored in paper bags and boxes means they become stale very quickly. Beneficial compounds such as catechins, desirable antioxidants, are easily oxidised or shed away.
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Less Flavour - Essential oils locked in the leaf which give aroma and flavour are released from whole leaves slowly when the leaves are steeped with room to unfold. Teabags don’t allow enough room for this which is why finer pieces are used. The oils easily evaporate away from these open larger surface areas leaving the tea dull and stale with a one-dimensional flavour.
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Price - While loose leaf tea tends to come in more expensive pouches than a box of teabags, when you compare the net weight you’ll often find you’re getting a lot less bang for your buck than you think with teabags. Of course, this varies from brand to brand but the average cost of a tea bag doesn’t differ much from the cost of a sever of loose leaf tea. Loose leaf tea can be re-steeped multiple times before it loses flavour too.
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Environmental Impact - Many tea bag manufacturers have tried to improve the quality of their tea flavour by creating bags that hold more space for leaves to open and release flavour. This means using microplastics to fortify the shape they hold. When the bags are thrown away these plastics break apart and seep into water systems ending up being consumed by wildlife.