The difference between tea bags and loose leaf! Should you switch to loose leaf?

Harvey Cocks
Jan 6, 2020
5 min read

Updated: Jun 1, 2020

So, you know that loose leaf exists but why would you bother using it when you can use teabags? What's the difference? Does it take longer to make tea with? All of these questions and more will be answered today once and for all!

Disclaimer:

Links at the end of this post are affiliate links, this means that if you make a purchase through any of the links shown within this blog post, I will earn a commission for each sale. My honesty to my audience is a priority and thus why this disclaimer is in place.

Firstly let's start off with tea bags and why they are commonly used over loose leaf. One of the big reasons is purely down to convenience in making tea because there is less mess and it's quicker to brew with. On top of this, tea bags are cheaper in cost compared to loose leaf, and are more commonly available in local shops.

Before we jump into everything, I will tackle these claims one by one. Firstly, let me start off by saying that tea bags may be more convenient in the sense that you just drop it in the mug and pour boiled water over the bag and let it infuse. BUT! What you are essentially drinking will most of the time (obviously depending on the tea brand) be quite bad in the quality of the tea compared to its counterpart in loose leaf form.

You may be thinking "how is this possible? It's the same thing, just in a bag right?"

In the tea world and market, there are different grades of quality of tea that define what is a loose leaf form of tea or whether a tea is in the grade of "fannings". Fannings is the smallest type of tea leaves that you can get, it's essentially tea dust which is in fact what some people call tea bags! By having a smaller leaf, the quality of the tea will most likely always be worse off than proper loose leaf of the tea. Tea companies can mass-produce and sell the tea in bags so that it's cheaper to produce that's why that box of 50 Green tea bags you bought from down the road is only £2! What's even worse is that although the quality may be worse, most tea companies won't tell you what type of tea you are drinking, sure they may say "Green Tea" but there are hundreds of different kinds of green teas! This is because most companies will just use leftover scraps from tea plantations/factories or broken leaves/twigs from the tea plant and chop it up finely into fannings, put it in a bag and that's what's in your teabag.

Now that's not to say tea bags are dangerous or bad for you because they are not really from the same type of tea that you think you're drinking its just worthy to know, that what you are drinking is probably not gonna be that great if its in a bag.

So, let's tackle the next issue that most people come into when thinking about buying tea bags or loose leaf. The price. Now this really does depend once again on where you are buying your tea from but most of the time if its loose leaf, it will be more expensive than bags due to the quality being better but hey, imagine what its gonna taste like! I can almost certainly guarantee you that if you buy loose leaf, you won't want to go back to ordinary tea bags if you find the loose leaf teas that you like! What most loose leaf tea companies will do is use grams as the weight measurement for how much tea to sell in a bag to you and this indicates the cost due to how much quantity of tea you are getting. But generally speaking, it goes up in 25g. So 25g, 50g, 75g, 100g, etc...

Now you may be wondering, "but wait for how much tea will I need to buy to make a single cup and how much do I use?!" Don't panic! Most loose leaf tea companies will have a guide on their website or most of the time on the actual packaging it tells you instructions. But if it doesn't, the rule of thumb usually is, for a mug of tea, use 1-2 teaspoons worth full of leaves.

Okay, so you know that loose leaf is better in quality, you're determined to buy some, you feel all good and dandy, but then you may be wondering "how am I going to brew this?" Easy fix! There are tons of ways to brew tea, and by switching to loose leaf tea not only are you going to get better quality cups of tea but also think about how much mess you're going to save up on with all the bags floating around on your kitchen countertop.

Some of the most common ways that new people brew loose leaf tea is by getting a strainer ball or silicon strainer mesh that sits in your mug/cup and has holes in it to infuse the water and you can simply take it out once it's done infusing and dump the leaves in the trash. Below I shall link some popular ones I have used in the past from Amazon! Or you can go even further than that and get yourself a cool little teapot!

However, if this still hasn't convinced you to switch to loose leaf, then that's fine. It's your choice at the end of the day, and there is no right or wrong way to make tea but simply to make it in the way you like it. However, what I would recommend is, if you are buying teabags still, go for the brands that have pyramid styled teabags instead of paper square or circular bags. These usually will have a better quality grade of leaves in them as the design of the tea bag will allow for the leaves to expand and release their flavour into the water.

BUT! If I have made you want to change your ways of drinking tea! Yay! I have done my job well then! If you are looking for brands that I recommend, I shall be doing another blog in the near future about my recommendations. Please note though, that I am based in the UK and most brands I mention on my blog will be revolved around in the UK/Europe.

Thanks for reading this far! Well done you! You survived reading through a lot of words! Baby Yoda praises you!