Why loose leaf tea?
The leaves used in most bags are actually the ‘dust and fannings’ from broken tea leaves that are left behind after the premium tea leaves have been removed, resulting in a huge compromise in quality, flavour and nutrition when compared to unbroken tea leaves.
Finely broken tea leaves loose most of their essential oils, aroma and flavour. When seeped, they release more tannins than whole leaf tea, resulting in bitter astringent brews with little nutritional value. The material, shape, and size of the bags themselves are also important factors. Most tea bags constrain the tea leaves, keeping them from unfurling and expanding to their full flavour and aroma potential. Standard tea bag material is often low-flow, preventing the brew from infusing the water outside of the bag properly. The traditional squeeze of the bag to extract more tea only crushes the leaves and thus releasing more bitterness.
Tea bags are often produced using low-grade fannings and dust on an industrial scale, they’re man handled multiple times causing further degradation to the fragile leaves, packaged by machines they can then sit in a warehouse for long periods of time before reaching your cup.
Bottom line - whole leaf teas provide you with more flavour, aroma and antioxidants than the tiny broken leaves and stale tea dust that is in most mass-produced tea bags. At Teaology we produce or tea blends in small batches. As soon as the leaves have been picked and processed on the tea estates they are nitrogen flushed and vacuum sealed. This ensures the leaves stay as fresh as possible and slows the oxidisation to retain as much nutritional benefit, flavour and aroma as we possibly can.
Tea bags are often produced using low-grade fannings and dust on an industrial scale, they’re man handled multiple times causing further degradation to the fragile leaves, packaged by machines they can then sit in a warehouse for long periods of time before reaching your cup.
Bottom line - whole leaf teas provide you with more flavour, aroma and antioxidants than the tiny broken leaves and stale tea dust that is in most mass-produced tea bags. At Teaology we produce or tea blends in small batches. As soon as the leaves have been picked and processed on the tea estates they are nitrogen flushed and vacuum sealed. This ensures the leaves stay as fresh as possible and slows the oxidisation to retain as much nutritional benefit, flavour and aroma as we possibly can.