Tea bags? Yes You Can!
Alex Probyn gives some industry insider views on tea in tea bags. Alex is a trained Master Tea Blender whose company Blends for Friends creates personalised tea blends as gifts and custom blends for tea shops; as gifts these teas are perhaps the height of tea giving as each blend is uniquely created from Alex’s stock of over 400 teas and herbs.
Invented in 1904, becoming widespread in Europe and North America during the 1950’s, the tea bag had not seen much change in it’s style for nearly 40 years before the likes of Tetley and Unilever (Lipton and PG Tips) sought new marketing angles by changing it’s shape. In reality - and contrary to what they would want you to believe - whether it be square, round or triangular, the flavour extraction is pretty much the same. However the past 10 years have seen a mini-revolution in these bags of leaves and it seems the bag of the moment is a ‘Fuso’ style bag that allows loose leaf teas to be brewed in a see-through gauze tea bag.
A few notable companies have really pushed these bags and seem to be doing rather well for their efforts - Might Leaf ( UK sales US stores) are really pushing sales in the UK/Europe after great success in the US, with smaller more niche companies such as Revolution Tea (US) using strong branding and quality packaging to push sales. No doubt the quesiton on your lips is - do they taste better? Well, a highly trained tea taster will be able to taste the paper and plastic (yes plastic) of a mainstream branded tea bag and indeed the taste of the fuso bags - however, the taint is almost negligable and wouldn’t effect the enjoyment. What is more important is the fact that the quality of the tea going into the fuso bags is likely to be far superior due to the cost and also the see-through nature of the bags. For a more in-depth understanding of the rise of the fuso bag see this article from the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal - but even since it was written the styles and shapes available have changed.
