06.19.09
Demystifying loose-leaf tea
posted by Brendan Waye | 6 comments
We’ve all heard it. We’ve all tried to explain it. Sometimes the patron buys into your pitch about the merits of loose over bagged, but other times it can be like talking to a wall.
You know what I am talking about here. You might be able to sell them on the quality and taste difference, but as for the convenience factor of loose versus bagged? It can be a real crapshoot.
Although loose leaves have made leaps and bounds in the past few years in terms of popularity, it still surprises me every day when a self-professed tea addict arrives in our store looking for bagged tea (and I am not talking about high-quality pyramid nylon bags that pack loose leaf).
Yes, as scary as it may sound, these customers are looking for the generic, bleached paper sacs that house a substance that, in some cases, tastes no more like tea than coffee does.
So, how do we emphasize the supreme benefits of loose leaf over off-the-shelf bagged tea? Here is what I have been verbally communicating for the past decade and it seems to work more often then not:
1. Quality. On balance, premium loose-leaf tea is of significantly higher quality than most bagged tea. Do you want to drink foul-tasting crud, or do you want to drink excellent-tasting full-leaf tea leaves?
2. Freshness. The unfortunate reality is that most tea bags purchased off the supermarket shelves can be almost two years old – essentially stale. Most people have no idea what fresh teas taste like. When presented with a taste comparison, they are literally blown away by the flavor profile of a fresh loose-leaf tea.
3. Lower cost per serving. This always freaks them out a bit. Here is the math (which you can do right in front of them): The average cost of 20 gourmet tea bags in a cello-wrapped box in the supermarket ranges from $4.99 to $6.99. Let’s take the median of $5.99. That is 30 cents a tea bag for about enough tea to make a 12-oz cup. If you spent the same 30 cents and invested it in loose tea, you would end up with enough tea to make 2-3 cups of tea (depending on the type of tea as well). If need be, I rip open a tea bag and dump it on a plate in front of the customer to show them how much tea they are actually getting for their 30 cents. Then I show them 30 cents worth of premium loose leaf.
4. Environmentally Friendly. That 30 cents you pay for the tea bag is contributing a hell of a lot of packaging to the planet’s landfills – just for the sake of convenience. Think about it for a second. First, there is the cello wrapper on the box. Next comes the box itself. In the box are 20 individually wrapped foil or paper pouches. And inside each pouch is a paper tea bag. Attached to the teabag is a staple, a length of string, and a tag on the other end. When you rip open the bag and dump the tea on a plate and compare it to 30 cents of loose leaf, the difference is quite startling. On closer scrutiny, you’ll see that the actual tea in the bag is hidden behind four layers of packaging. If all that packaging is not bad enough, the actual quality of the tea can be downright atrocious.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Great work Brendan! I loved all of your reasons for using loose leaf tea. We tea-folk can make a superior cup or pot using loose leaves just as easily and conveniently as a teabag. Not to mention the centuries old arts and rituals of making tea is totally degraded by teabags!
June 19th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Right on - thanks for the well thought out explanation. When you resteep the whole leaf tea multiple times, the saving really add up. No comparison with the quality as you mention. Whole leaf is definitely the way to go. Once I got over my anxiety about brewing whole leaf, it was a wonderful transition. I think we underestimate that anxiety for most people. We also need to provide suitable pots and utensils for whole leaf tea brewing.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Great article, Brendan!
I love that you really broke down the environment cost of using a teabag vs. loose leaf.
All right on!
June 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Quality tea is quality regardless of brew method. Many high end tea companies offer their products in both loose leaf and bagged versions. The only difference one should expect in purchasing either or is the convenience of an individual sack or novelty of loose leaf.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Hi Marne,
Thanks for the comments, but I have to say that after years and years of drinking both bagged tea and loose leaf, quality is not synonymous between high end bag companies and loose leaf purveyors as you suggest. Yes, there are packing machines now that can actually portion small amounts of unbroken leaves into bags and the result is a great cup of tea, but your still left with the non-biodegradable waste of the sac and all the other wrapping.
I have also found that tea infused through paper, nylon, silk or what ever medium used, to still be inferior in taste to the exact same leaves floating freely in a pot - unencumbered.
There is only one justification for stuffing tea of any kind into sachet, regardless of the quality and that is simply a matter of convenience.
Loose leaf is truly the only option for quality & taste and for our dear mother earth.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Some great loose leaf teas are so large leaved that any bag or sachet doesn’t allow them to move freely. And once you have the right equipment, brewing loose leaf is extremely easy. We are seeing two things at our concept store: Once people taste loose leaf they never want bags again and once they really taste it they tend to diminish or stop using any additional flavorings. Great article, Brendan, and I plan to use the info!