Why Teabags Are Not the Best Option....and Loose Tea Is!
It’s very common, the majority of the population around the world love a cup of tea…but using a teabag. It is agreeably a quick and convenient way of satisfying a tea urge, however using a teabag is not always the best option, for a number of reasons.
Poor quality tea
Teabags are easy to buy and are therefore an easy option when rushing around the supermarket doing the weekly shop but sadly not as much love and attention goes into the mass production of these bags and this is clearly evident if you delve deeper into the world of fannings (the tea that is incorporated into the teabag).
Pesticides & toxins
Paper teabags can contain pesticides and potentially dangerous toxins that are triggered and become active when submerged in hot water. This particular compound, called Epichlorhydrine can cause a number of health concerns if consumed. If paper teabags are not your go-to tea choice and plastic ones are, well unfortunately they aren’t much better for you either! Plastic teabags, when placed in water can start to degrade and leak toxins, so the more you drink tea using this method, the more damage you may do to your body. If these weren’t bad enough, some teabags are bleached in chlorine! Another contaminated substance that should not be consumed by us human-beings.
Hygiene
Another problem to consider is that tea in this form is often not washed before placed in teabags; this means that all the nasty, undesirable material is circulating around in your cup. If you were to open a teabag up, you would see that it is full of fragmented tea leaves, better known as dust/fannings – not the best quality tea, consequently releasing more tannins, resulting in a rich tea colour but not as flavoursome as unbroken tea leaves. Tea leaves need room to move and adapt to hot water; a teabag prevents the tea from steeping efficiently.
Artificial flavourings
Unfortunately, artificial flavourings are also used to intensify the taste of a tea-bag, as a low-cost (and inferior) alternative to fresh, aromatic loose tea. So, now after reading the cons of using a teabag, we hope that you are all BRUU loose tea converts who will never ‘look bag’ again!
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