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Comment by NeedMoreTea | Hacker News Reader

Tea bag tea is much finer dust compared to loose leaf of the same brand. So it brews faster (and worse). They change the blend to try and compensate.

Tried Liptons once. On our very first trip to the USA, we needed a decent cup of tea. Visited Walmart, bought really expensive pack of Liptons which I think was one of just a very few teas among millions of coffees. Made tea, instantly regretted it. Surprising considering it's from Unilever who make the UK's best seller: PG, which is OK but a bit weak.

The place we stayed that leg got most of a pack of free tea bags, and we found somewhere that could make tea - without ice or lemon. :)

Thankfully plastic tea bags don't seem to have become popular here. Asda (Walmart) did them for a while, so we switched brands.

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> "Tea bag tea is much finer dust compared to loose leaf of the same brand."

Right, the "tea dust" is what goes in to your regular cheap paper tea bags. But the contents of plastic tea bags are usually more "premium", basically the same as good quality loose-leaf tea.

Some super-premium brands like TWG use cotton tea bags, which give you the same high quality tea and brewing without the dose of micro-plastics.

Regardless of any potential health effects, I think plastic tea bags are a pointless single-use plastic that should be banned.

Here tea bags always seem to come with much shorter brewing times. So if the pack, nylon or paper, gives shorter than loose leaf brewing time it's dust - not necessarily the estate grade "dust". Perhaps from premium leaves and tips going into the blend, but cut/ground far, far finer than loose leaf.

By the time we get to super-premium, I'd just go loose leaf always. Quite agree nylon is an innovation we shouldn't have. :)

> Surprising considering it's from Unilever who make the UK's best seller: PG, which is OK but a bit weak.

Isn't PG generally considered to be one of the poorest quality teas available in the UK? (it sells well, but that's mostly because it's dirt cheap).

Alright, I left out OK as far as mass market bulk supermarket tea bag brands go.

Yorkshire Gold is distinctly better, Tetley and supermarket own brands are mostly about the same: OK depending on your taste, a couple of supermarket and Twinings that are a bit crap. There are cheaper brands that are awful. PG loose leaf is a refreshing blend, far better than bags, but it's not a premium tea.

The tea bag problem is mostly not enough tea and 1-2 minute brewing dust can't give the flavours that take 4-5 mins to come out. That and they all reduced the weight of the packs for the same number of tea bags. 20 or 25 years ago they all increased the number of tea bags for the same weight of tea.

Even slightly premium loose leaf is vastly better. e.g. Tesco's cheapest Finest - the non-estate specific one, or Booth's quality loose leaf is leagues ahead of PG loose leaf, let alone bags (and cheaper!) etc.

Locally I have a bloody marvellous specialist tea shop with far, far too many excellent own blends. :)

I can usually find Twinings anywhere where I am in the US. How would you rate them?

Not nearly enough tea in their tea bags. Here they were the first to reduce the weight of packs, and it hurt their blends. Hotels seem to like Twinings for some reason. Find a way to sneak an extra tea bag into the mug or pot. ;)

Their loose leaf are decent enough blends, but increasingly uncommon here.

Two bags of Twinings per cup, and off you go.

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