Perfect Cup of Tea

I'm such a tea freak. One of my favorite presents are teas I haven't tried yet and this can be endless. I love how tea is used, brewed and sipped differently amongst various cultures. Tea has been part of Chinese culture dating back thousands of years BC but the tea bag, however, is a rather modern Western device. Most believe Thomas Sullivan from New York was the first purveyor to patent and promote the use of tea bags in 1903-1904.

I have found more tea bags to be crap. Thanks to Lipton and other junk tea providers, they were able to take tea dust, the stuff left after tea leaves break, crumble or are mis-handled, and sell poorer product without much question. The whole leaf is almost always better at releasing the full flavor of the tea. Browsing a tea catalogue, you can even get into which leaves are selected and plucked for each variety; it can get as complicated as find wine (Upton's catalog for example), noting years, estates the tea is grown on, and first notes. To get the right agony-of-the-leaves, it's best to let the tea unfurl in the hot water unencumbered by a bag, metal ball, or other weird constricting device. But I admit that sometimes it is more convenient to have a large enough tea bag to let the leaves open and expand while allowing removal of the wet leaves before bitterness sets in, which is about 3-5 minutes for most black teas.

So what's in a tea bag? Well, paper isn't bad but it's best to not have it bleached (dioxins = bad) or processed. Some say they can tast the paper fiber flavor but I don't tend to notice probably because I rarely partake in those types of teas (Lipton). I stay away from sythetic tea bags since I think it much more likely that plasticy residuals come off into the tea at hot water temps than paper or fabric bags. I'm truely astounded at how many high priced tea brands are using this type of 'bag' as it is really wrong if you care at all about the tea inside that bag.

Mighty Leaf is a great whole leaf brand that uses pouches that can be tossed into the compost heap. They were my bag of choice and now I can compare them to Le Palais des Thés. My sister sent me Darjeeling and I was happy to see the little muslin, unbleached bag doing a nice job. I think it could allow for more expansion but overall it did a wonderful job. I still think I like the Mighty Leafe bag better but the tea from Le Palais des Thés is better quality for traditional black teas and I guess that's what it's all about. I still love ML's fun blends and herbals. I know there are those who say technically that some of these dried herbs and such aren't 'tea' but plfffts to them, I still enjoy a good flavor infused water, hot and cold, regardless of what you label it ... except if it's bad coffee, whcih is much more likely to happen that a bad cup of tea.