The quality of loose leaf tea is significantly higher than that of tea bags

The vast majority of tea bags made around the world use paper as a filter and dust and fannings as the tea. Dust and fannings are of the lowest quality tea available. A tea bag is really just an ineffective portioning system and a way to get rid of left over tea. The vast majority of tea that goes into tea bags is less than inferior quality; it is the worst available.

Tea bags are an inefficient portioning system

The typical size tea bags, new pyramid style or traditional are 1 ½ grams per pouch. This size really only works for 6 ounce cups and in this country we do not generally use that size cup. In virtually any home in America, the cup size is 8- 12 ounces and still only 1 tea bag is used. Therein lies the next advantage to using loose leaf tea. It gives you the ability to make a quality cup of tea regardless of the cup size because you control the amount of tea used.

Economics of Loose Leaf Tea

A pound of loose leaf tea is comprised of 450 grams. A typical 6 ounce cup requires 1 ½ grams of tea. If you assume that the cup is 8-12 ounces, you will need 2-3 grams of tea. That number allows for about 100 - 12 ounce cups from a pound of loose leaf tea. In order to compare tea bag prices with loose leaf tea prices, take the pound price and divide by 100 because you will get about 100 cups from a pound of tea. Then take your tea bag price and double it because you will need two teabags to get a good 12 ounce cup of tea. It’s not unusual for a tea bag to cost 10 or 15 cents a piece because packaging comprises so much of what goes into a tea bag. So a 12 ounce cup of tea is going to cost about 30 cents. Loose leaf tea can be purchased for about $30 dollars a pound. Buy a $30 pound bag of tea and compare it to the 30 cent tea bags. The difference in quality is obvious immediately and it is impossible not to understand the advantage of serving loose leaf tea.