If you drink tea every day, you may prefer to buy tea bags because you think it's cheaper.

But is it really?

We decided to go and investigate if the tea bag is actually cheaper than leaf tea. 

In this video, we also discuss whether tea bag is more convenient than leaf tea. 

In the above video:

Good ol’ teabags, well they have been around for a little while.

Tea started being enjoyed in the loose leaf form many centuries ago.

Through industrialization, tea bag, this commercial jiggle thingy, has become the "norm" of tea making and some of us have fallen in love with it.

Well, I have fallen out of love with it for quite some time, about 10 years or so.

The reason for the change is simply because leaf tea tastes much better.

WHAT'S IN A TEA BAG

If you have ever torn a tea bag open like what we did with this tea here, the stuff inside is just shockingly tiny.

In order for tea leaves to go into tea bags, they have to be chopped up.

The commercial tea bags usually have about 1-2 grams of tea that is chopped into this grade called dust and essentially what you are getting a cup of dusty brown liquid.

It doesn't have much tea taste.

I bet you may have already experienced that. And you tried to fix this by adding another tea bag in your cup / pot to get some decent flavour out of this sorry looking cup of tea.

The tea bag doesn’t have much aroma and the actual tea flavour is gone.

And usually, tea bags are not fresh.

CONVENIENCE

Yes, you can buy tea bags easily from the supermarket, but it's just as easy to buy a box of leaf tea from the same supermarket isle (we will forget about the quality of leaf tea just for a moment here).

To make leaf tea, I can also show you how to do it easily using infusers.

I’ve got an infuser here and let’s just imagine you are using a mug.This cup holder infuser is our design, it just sits on the side of the mug and very handy.

So just put tea leaves in, put on the side of the mug, pour hot water in and you’re good to go.

How different is that to dunking a tea bag in a mug?

The tea bag is NOT more convenient than leaf tea.

QUICKER TO MAKE

Honestly – not different. The time spent is really identical.

The time difference is in the mindset. Let's explore the steps required -

Did you see any difference making tea from tea bag to leaf tea? 

I don't think so ;)

BUT, the flavour and aroma, hence the enjoyment of the tea made is vastly different (as discussed above). 

So same 3 minutes brewing and almost identical steps to make the tea, which tea would you drink?

Are you going to downgrading yourself?

These 3 minutes that you spent here is far more valuable, giving you a much better enjoyment in terms of the flavour of the tea comparing to this little jiggly thingy, it’s really not worthwhile to just go and downgrade yourself that way.

PRICE

You want to watch out on your budget and looking at teabag because you think they are cheaper than leaf tea?

Think again..

If youc ompare gram to gram often leaf tea provide a better valiue and a lot of leaf tea you can brew more than once, with tea bag sometime even one teabag doesnt do the job you need more than one tea bag.

And of course, you might argue that leaf tea seems much more expensive. I have to break this into to you, in fact, it’s not.

We compared a high-end pure pyramid tea bags from David Jones, a cheaper one from Officeworks and our leaf tea. (Price dated as of 2019)

English Breakfast Comparison:

Teas.com.au organic English Breakfast Leaf Tea: $53.85/1kg
Officeworks English Breakfast Tea Bags: $58.03/500g
David Jones English Breakfast Pyramid Tea Bags: $59.75/500g

Some tea leaves you can actually re-use for every spoonful of tea - Oolong particularly is great for consecutive, multiple brews.

So which tea is better for your pocket again?;)

GOOD TEA ONLY COMES IN LEAF TEA FORM

The good teas are not available in tea bag, end of story.

Silver Needle tea bag is like, hanging fluffy dice in your Mercedes. You can do it, but not exactly classy ;)

You simply cannot get the authentic taste of tea leaves when you are just drinking tea made from a tea bag.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

Some tea bags can, sort of going into a compost bin, but they would not totally decompose.

If you are thinking of being kinder to the environment, tea bag involves more processes to make, meaning it has a heavier carbon footprint.

Your loose leaf tea can easily go into the compost bin or straight into the pot where the plant is, just like what we sometimes do here.

IN CONCLUSION

Leaf tea tastes better, likely cheaper gram for gram. If you love good quality tea, you can only find it in leaf tea form. On top of all that, leaf tea is better for the environment. 

So isn't it time to switch to leaf tea?

If you have any questions or if you have experienced moving from tea bags to leaf tea, I definitely would like to hear them. Drop those comments, feedback and stories into the comment box underneath this video.