Tea Bags vs. Loose tea leaves

webtalk wrote: »

You can get it most places, and there are some speciality shops.

Doubt it is cheaper than bags. They use the 'sweepings' for teabags - essentially the close-to-dust-without-dissolving-bits.

Loose leaves are also easier for composting - one doesn't have to tear each individual bag open to remove the tea.

Oh dear,is my front garden is going to look like a teabag graveyard? I never tear the bags for the compost :eek: :rolleyes: . Sorry I do use teabags but at least they're Yorkshire.

bellaquidsin wrote: »

Might well do, because those little bags do not decompose.:mad:



.

Is that really true ?:eek: I'm astonished, I've been chucking them on the compost for years.

thriftlady wrote: »

Is that really true ?:eek: I'm astonished, I've been chucking them on the compost for years.

So do I, and mine disappear without trace. Though there was a period where the tea decomposed, but left empty bags (and I don't tear them open, either). I wondered if they were made from polypropylene They were easy enough to fish out and chuck

Penny. x

I'm a loose tea person too. Until v recently I was using punjana loose tea (£1.68 in tesco) mostly cos I hadn't sourced any other tea. But then discovered that asda do loose tea at 59p for the same size (I think about 250g). The asda tea is a bit more powdery but since we are getting through huge amounts of it at the mo I'm mixing it 50/50 with the punjana to no ill effects. M&S also do loose tea which is nice as well - it was on buy one get one half price until recently.

I drink organic loose green tea and it's certainly cheaper than bags especially the way I make it. I make a pot of tea first thing in the morning, drink that and then simply add about a 1/4 teaspoon top-up of tea for every subsequent pot. I first did this as an experiment in economy as the first organic green tea on the market was an exorbitant price (£4 pack) but then found I liked the flavour better and theoretically it's better healthwise as the antioxidants etc. have more time to be released into the tea. I'm told this is how the Japanese make tea but that may or may not be true, I don't know. If you try this don't leave a lot of tea in the pot or it will stew and you'll end up tipping your antioxidants down the sink. Don't know if this method would work with the black teas - they might be too strong.