Tea is very much part of our daily routine and a cup of tea starts with a tea bag purchased from a local supermarket. Tea is however the second most popular drunk beverage in the world, behind water. Consumers noticed that they could simply leave the tea in the bag and re-use it with fresh tea. However, the potential of this distribution/packaging method would not be fully realized until later on. They want products that have character and reflect where they’re grown and produced. Even in the recession, we are witnessing a sea change. There’s a certain type of consumer who is moving away from mass produced, consistently uniform and ultimately boring offerings – back to interesting, quality products from small producers, where every mouthful tells a story of how, when and where they were grown.
The main difference between the teas used in tea bags compared to that of loose leaf tea, is in the size of the tea leaf. The tea commonly used in tea bags is called fanning’s or “dust” and is the waste product produced from the sorting of higher quality loose leaf tea, although this certainly is not true for all brands of tea, fanning’s are often blended in with other smaller cut tea leaves.