Many people feel that tea bags/tea bags are a compromise: in order to be convenient and easy to use, the quality of the tea has to be sacrificed.
Ever since I got to know the tea bag, it doesn't seem to have climbed out of the "cheap and low-quality" mud pit: mentioning the tea bag, I always look at it with disgust, and I always associate it with the assembly line of the big factory, the inferior broken tea, and the poisonous tea. The bag is on the hook.
So, loose tea = premium, teabag = inferior tea? !
No, today Penguin wants to correct its name, from the origin to the raw material, see it clearly at a time!
1|so, who invented them?
It is said that tea bags were invented to save money.
In 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a tea merchant in New York, used silk pouches instead of tin cans in order to save the cost of transporting tea, which is not only much lighter in weight, but also cheaper in material!
He had thought that the customer would take the silk bag apart and make the tea as usual. As a result, the other party actually did not take it apart, and threw the bag into the water together!
However, some people say that tea bags were born in Wisconsin as early as seven years ago in 1901. The two ladies (Roberta C. Rosen, Mary Moralen) dislike the traditional method of making tea, which is a waste of time and is very complicated. In hot water, the trouble of filtering is eliminated. In 1903, their invention of the "tea tray" was patented.
However, it must be admitted that Sullivan's move has brought the user experience of drinking tea a big step forward.
In any case, at that time, when people were entangled in the two things of "filtering is troublesome" and "mouthful of tea residues are annoying", this tea bag that came out of nowhere was simply the gospel of the new century.
2｜The great teabag seems to have a lot of controversy?
When it was first invented, tea bags were still a luxury, a high-end enjoyment. But it was so convenient, the mass base became wider and wider, and later, tea bags became fast-moving consumer goods. (You must know that Lipton is the baby of FMCG giant Unilever!)
The popularity of tea bags has become a fast-moving consumer product, or because it solves two problems:
Quick: Unlike Chinese tea, it takes several brews to achieve the best flavor of the tea soup, tea bags, one time is enough. Therefore, in order to increase the contact area between the tea leaves and the water and allow the water-soluble substances to separate out more quickly, the tea leaves should be chopped finely. But the problem is that when the tea leaves are chopped, it is difficult to judge the quality of the tea raw materials from the appearance. This is the main reason why tea bags are black.
The other is convenience: no one likes the feeling of a mouthful of tea leaves. The tea bags that have been filtered with broken leaves are also the most comfortable place. Then came the problem again. The tea bags were made of different layers, and some of them were sealed with bleach and staples. They smelled peculiar, and the body wouldn’t get sick after drinking it, right?
Since it is a fast-moving consumer product, some shortcomings of the fast-moving consumer product will inevitably appear on the tea bag: assembly line products, rough materials, poor taste, not delicate...
Everything has two sides of a coin. Tea bags have many benefits, but that's how you get black physique.
3｜So, must tea bags be cheap and inferior?
of course not.
Most of the traditional tea bags, or those positioned in fast-moving consumer goods, may contain tea powder or tea powder, and it is impossible to judge the quality of the raw materials with the naked eye, leading many people to think that the tea bags are equal to inferior tea.
In fact, if you think about it carefully, tea bags are just a way of packaging tea. In China, except for a few special teas, tea bags can be used.
Why can't tea bags be filled with tea?
The material of the tea bag itself has also been evolving, and there have been many improvements from shape to material. A good tea bag will not make people have too many food safety concerns.
4｜So, how to judge the quality of tea bags?
May wish to disassemble into two aspects: 1. Tea materials; 2. The quality of tea bags.
Tea ingredients: broken tea or whole tea?
Don't feel like an enemy when you see broken tea.
The common tea bags in China are indeed used to grind low-grade tea and leftovers into pieces and put them into tea bags. However, in foreign countries, the development of tea chopping technology is quite complete, and it is equipped with a complete quality evaluation system. High-quality tea can also be made into chopped tea.
▲Comparison of whole tea vs broken tea
However, in recent years, it has become a trend for tea merchants to put whole leaves into tea bags in order to more intuitively show that they are using high-quality raw materials. If you are not confident in judging the quality of tea by yourself, then look for tea bags with the highest degree of integrity as possible.
Tea bag quality: look at the shape, look at the material
When buying tea bags, in addition to looking at the appearance and taste of the packaging, how many people pay attention to the material of the tea bags? In fact, there are many articles here.
Generally speaking, tea bags on the market can be divided into the following categories:
According to the shape, it can be divided into round, square, double-capsule w-shaped and pyramid-shaped.
▲ tea bag shape
The precipitation speed of round and square is slower, and the double-sac W-shape is the more common tea bag shape on the market today.
Pyramid shape (also known as triangle bag) is the most popular for high-end tea: this shape will speed up the precipitation of tea juice, forming a vortex-like movement, and the concentration of tea soup will be more uniform. enough room to stretch.
According to the material, it is even more varied: cotton cloth, non-woven fabric, pure wood pulp filter paper, silk, nylon and so on are common on the market.
▲ Tea bag material
No matter what the material is, to test whether it is a good tea bag, you only need to look at these: strong toughness, high temperature brewing, can be quickly moistened after brewing, tea powder does not leak out, and there is no odor. High-end tea bags prefer expensive nylon and silk, which are transparent, beautiful and resistant to bubbles.
The independent packaging of each tea bag is also a bonus: tea leaves are easy to absorb moisture and odor, and tea bags are especially susceptible to moisture and odor, so if conditions permit, it is better to add a layer of packaging.
In addition, whether there is cotton thread (convenient to drag the tea bag out and throw it away), whether the ingredients on the tag and the brewing instructions are detailed, these details also affect the overall evaluation of the tea bag.
▲The self-cultivation of a good tea bag - cotton thread, tea bag, independent packaging, tag
It is true that most of the top teas are concentrated in loose tea, but this does not mean that there are no outstanding players in teabags.
5｜What's the point of brewing tea bags? Can it be brewed multiple times?
The brewing time of tea bags is mostly 3-5 minutes, and the effective substances can be precipitated by about 80-90%. Therefore, once the tea bag is brewed, it is enough, and the taste of the tea bag is not enough.
A good teabag has a suggested optimal brewing time and temperature, not too simple. If there must be something to pay attention to, it is not difficult to remember to take out the tea bag before drinking :)
6｜What are hanging ear tea bags and tea sticks? Is it reliable?
Thanks to the popularity of hanging ear coffee, hanging ear tea bags are also emerging. However, there is still a big difference between the two: the former is brewed and uses water flow to extract the flavor; while the latter is brewed, the tea needs to be completely submerged in water.
▲Hanging ear tea bag
Many hanging ear tea bags advertise that they use raw leaf tea. The extraction speed of the original leaves is not as fast as that of broken leaves, and the tea leaves are difficult to stretch in the hanging ear bags, which further restricts the extraction speed of tea juice. The hanging ear coffee affected by hand-brewing is naturally filtered and extracted by gravity, and the flavor is delicate and layered, while the hanging ear tea bag obviously cannot do it, just wearing a similar coat.
Tea sticks, also called tea sticks. People put tea/broken tea into a multi-porous tin rod, which not only has the function of filtering tea bags, but also can be used as a stirring rod, while stirring, the tea material is precipitated, but it is relatively small (maybe because there is no egg use) ), did not catch on.
