Tea Journal · Kit and water

How to use fill your own tea bags

Fill your own tea bags are the answer for anyone who wants loose leaf tea without any faff at all. They are empty paper filters. You put the leaf in, drop the bag in your mug, and bin it after. Here is how to get the best out of them.

How to fill one

Open the bag, spoon in one heaped teaspoon of leaf for a mug, two for peppermint, chamomile or white tea because they are light and fluffy. Fold the top flap over to close it. Some bags have a drawstring, ours have a flap that folds and holds. Drop it in the mug and pour the water on.

Do not overfill. Leaf needs room to swell. A bag that is stuffed brews weak, which sounds backwards but is true.

Brewing

Brew for the normal time for that tea. Black tea and herbals, three to five minutes in boiling water. Green tea, two to three minutes at about 80°C. Lift the bag out when the time is up. Do not squeeze it, which pushes out the bitter stuff that was sitting in the leaf.

When they are better than an infuser

Work, where there is no sink to rinse an infuser. Travel, a few filled bags in a tin and you have your own tea anywhere. Camping and the flask. Gifting a sample of a blend to a friend. Anyone who finds an infuser fiddly to open and empty, which is a real thing for a lot of people. And for fluffy herbals, where a paper bag gives the leaf more room than a metal ball.

Fill a batch in advance

Fill ten or twenty on a Sunday and keep them in a caddy or the sealed pouch. They keep as well as the loose leaf does, as long as they are stored dry and out of the light. It means a proper cup of Scottish Breakfast in the morning takes exactly as long as a tea bag.

Cost and waste

A pack of 100 is £3.49, so about 3p a bag. The paper is unbleached filter paper and the used bag with the leaf can go in the food waste or compost. Loose leaf in a paper bag still works out cheaper per cup than most boxed tea bags, and the tea inside is leaf rather than dust.