One of the most common statements I hear about tea bags is that they contain dust and sweepings from the floor; this is indeed true, but not in the way that you may think ! At the end of the manufacturing process, there is a jumble of different leaf particles that need to be sorted so that equal shapes and sizes are grouped together.

This is literally done using big sieving machines whereby the largest particles are syphoned off at the top and the smallest fall through the smaller mesh at the bottom (For fine quality teas this may be partially done by hand - as you see on the left).

The leaf grades of equal size/shape are then packed together and sold separately in the open market.

There is a very comprehensive grading system used within the tea trade and the smallest of these are known as ‘dusts’ - these grades literally look like dust as the particles are so small and it is typically these grades that are used in tea bags. Continue Reading »

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. Continue Reading »