I love my tea ..............

………loose leaf tea that is! None of your teabags for me, even though there are some rather nice ‘posh’ ones in the shops at the moment. So why do I prefer loose leaf tea? Mainly because it is fresher and tastier. Loose leaf tea is made primarily of whole unbroken leaves whilst tea bags are the opposite, using lower grade smaller pieces of tea, dust and fannings. The smaller pieces of tea used in tea bags lose their essential oils when brewed leaving the tea dull and stale. Loose leaf tea made properly is flavoursome and aromatic. But I’ll share my tips on how to make the perfect cup of tea in my next blog.

So why do we need teabags when loose leaves make a superior cup of tea? In 1968 only 3% of households in Britain used teabags, which were an American invention! Today 55 billion tea bags are used in the UK each year, that´s about 370,000 tons of waste that mainly ends up in landfill sites. So just from an environment perspective it make sense to use loose leaf tea. And the used tea leaves make a superb fertiliser for the garden. The waste isn't just limited to the bags in the landfill sites either.  If you use good quality tea leaves they can be infused several times.  In fact in China it is widely believed that the second or third brew is the best.  Each time you brew the tea it will have different, subtle, delicate flavours.  Don’t leave tea leaves to stew once brewed, strain them,  or you’ll end up with a bitter cup of tea. 

It always amazes me that making a pot of tea is often seen as being troublesome, yet many will happily use a cafetiere for coffee.  All you need for a refreshing, stimulating cup of tea is a teapot, and the hot water and tea leaves to go with it of course! So why not start your tea journey today?