Tea Bags vs Loose Leaf Tea: Why I Prefer Loose Leaf

The question “how do you take your tea?” means more than a decision between milk or no milk.

A tea drinker shopping for Earl Grey also has to choose between tea bags and loose leaf. But if tea bags are simply easier to use, why would anyone go through all that hassle to diffuse mushy, gross leaves? As it turns out, the choice comes down to more than just convenience.

The answer, like with most things, depends on your tea bag material and what you value most in a piping hot cup of tea. Personally, I pick loose leaf tea as the clear winner over bagged tea. Here’s why.

Why are tea bags so popular today?

Patent of the first tea bag, filed in 1901.

As you could probably guess, tea bags have only been around for a sliver of tea’s really, really, really long history. When did the popularity of tea bags over loose leaf teas become more widespread?

Some say the tea bag had its start in 1901, when American women Roberta C Lawson and Mary McLaren filed a patent for a “tea leaf holder” [1]. Their open-mesh fabric design was intended to be “inexpensive as well as convenient for ready use”—a similar approach to modern-day tea bags. A few years later, New York importer Thomas Sullivan started bundling tea leaves in silk bags as a cheaper way to send samples to customers [2]. However, these customers misunderstood their use and instead steeped their tea samples with silk bags and all, spurring the commercial success of tea bags.

The innovations in convenience and control of tea doesn’t stop there, with the German Teekanne benefiting from an employee’s ingenuity, resulting in the invention of the first tea packaging machine [3]. From there, the first heat-sealed tea bag appeared in patent form by American William Hermanson, though the common rectangular style came later in 1940 [4]. Until then, tea bags were small sacks.

Since its start, the tea bag design has continuously been improved on and reinvented to allow for better leaf unfurling, affordability, and safer materials.

And although Americans are largely to thank for tea bags’ introduction to the world, it’s a bit ironic to consider that 100 years later, 96 percent of tea consumed in the United Kingdom comes bagged [5]. Meanwhile, tea bags and loose leaf combined come out to only 23 percent of the total tea drunk in the United States (we’re big iced tea people).

So, just as Roberta and Mary intended, tea bags’ low prices and convenience have made the tea bag a universal symbol of tea and a staple of grocery stores’ tea aisles everywhere.

Tea bags vs loose leaf—a closer comparison

	Loose leaf tea	Tea bag
Health	✅	⬜
Sustainability	✅	⬜
Quality	✅	⬜
Taste	✅	⬜
Price	⬜	⬜

Like with most food inventions in the past century meant to make our lives easier, the humble tea bag has also faced scrutiny by consumers and scientists.

Are tea bags toxic? Is loose leaf tea better? Is one option cheaper?

Let’s unpack this multifaceted debate!

Health

Tea bags

Depending on material and how they’re manufactured, some tea bags may be toxic to health.

In the past 20 years, premium tea bags or fancy silky sachets have gained popularity for their more luxurious branding and spacious pyramid designs that allow better steeping [6]. These silky pyramid sachets are made of nylon or PET and have been shown to have some questionable effects once submerged in boiling water. That’s because the molecules in these materials break down in really hot water.

A 2019 study from McGill University in Canada compared four commercial plastic-based tea bags to analyze what really happens when they are steeped [7]. After removing tea leaves and heating in water, the results showed that “a single plastic teabag at brewing temperature released about 11.6 billion microplastic and 3.1 billion nanoplastic particles into the water”.

To compare in everyday terms, a one liter (or 33.8 fl. oz.) single-use plastic water bottle contains about 44 microplastic particles [8]. The study’s researchers stated that more work is needed to understand the health implications in humans, however.

Even with the tried and true paper tea bag, not everything is oolong colored rainbows and teacup unicorns. Paper tea bags can contain epichlorohydrin, which in contact with hot water is activated and releases a chemical that may cause cancers [9][10].

With all that said, if you’re looking for tea bags comparable to naked loose leaf in health, there are a few golden guidelines to look out for.

Plastic-free tea companies like Stash, Numi, and Traditional Medicals state their tea bags are free of:

Epichlorohydrin
Microplastics
Chemical sealants
Metal staples

Other key words that hint at a safer tea bag for your health are:

Compostable
Unbleached
Cotton tea strings
Soy-based inks

Loose leaf tea infusers

Tea infusers to steep loose leaf teas are often made of either metal, silicone, or plastic materials. While there isn’t nearly as much research available about health implications for these various materials when used in tea infusers, you can practice some general safety rules to ensure you’re minimizing the amount of unwanted chemicals in your tea cup.

Look for tea infusers that are BPA-free or made of food-safe silicone. The FDA has said that BPA is safe at very low levels, as shown through hundreds of studies, however heat can cause the BPA to leach into your tea [11]. Like with anything that touches your food, keep an extra eye on imposter products that don’t have any information available on safety or tests. The U.S. National Library of Medicine has stated that stainless steel remains one of the safest metals you can cook with, making this tea infuser material the best tried and true option [12].

Although there isn’t as much information available on tea infuser’s health impacts, if health is a big concern, loose leaf tea is better than tea bags for peace of mind and controllability!

Sustainability

Tea bags

The BBC did a short story on plastic in tea bags in 2020 and highlighted an experiment that placed Britain’s most popular tea bag brands in copper ammonia solution for five days [13]. This solution dissolves any material away that isn’t plastic. Twinings, Tetley, and Yorkshire brands were all proven to have non-biodegradable plastic in their tea bags.

In addition to the health hazards the presence of plastics in tea bags holds as explored above, single-use plastics in everyday food products can also spell sad times for sustainability efforts. While you can certainly use old tea bags for composting or skincare, just make sure the bags are not plastic and are chemical free first.

That being said, there are several tea brands, such as British tea company Clipper, that are making moves to be more health-conscious and eco-friendly. In 2018, they were the world’s first tea company to switch to heat seal, unbleached, non-GM plant-based and fully biodegradable tea bags [14 ].

Loose leaf tea

The benefits of loose leaf tea from an eco-friendly perspective is that you don’t have any extra packaging to worry about after every cup other than the leaves themselves. Throw-away packaging versus no packaging is a no brainer, making a loose leaf option the best for sustainability!

Steep quality and taste

Perhaps the hottest contested topic surrounding the debate over tea bags vs loose leaf is the taste itself.

One of the main factors that influences loose leaf’s taste is the leaves’ ability to expand and properly steep, bringing out the flavor. A 2017 study published in the Journal of Food Science and Technology found that the swelling and infusion kinetics of loose leaf tea was always higher than with tea bags for all leaf particle sizes [15]. Double chambered tea bags were also shown to steep better than single chambered ones.

The recent introduction of pyramid sachets innovates on single and double chamber tea bags, which have limited space, by giving tea leaves more room to expand and do their thing.

Additionally, tea bags tend to contain more fannings and dust, or broken tea leaves, whereas you get the whole leaf in loose leaf tea [16 ]. The smaller pieces increase extraction efficiency but change the taste profile, leading to a slightly different tea baggy taste.

Price

Tea has been grown, traded, and sipped for centuries, leaving little more that tea companies can add as value other than packaging to increase convenience and branding.

If tea bags have added packaging, is loose leaf tea cheaper? There are two sides to this answer.

The cost for consumers is generally higher for loose leaf teas, given that the quality is higher. However, there is no clear cut price comparison, as tea quality and pricing differs widely between brands and types.

As a very rough estimate, let’s compare Twinings’ English Breakfast tea bags to loose leaf. A tin containing 100g of loose leaf tea costs $5.79 on Twining’s website. If we assume that one teaspoon necessary to make a cup of tea weighs 2.5 grams, this tin yields roughly 40 cups of tea. In comparison, a box of 20 tea bags costs $3.49. For 40 cups using tea bags, you would pay $6.96, a bit more than using loose leaf.

Cost to consumers aside, tea bags actually create much better profit margins for tea companies. A tea bag requires half as much tea as a loose leaf variety, creating a higher value per kilo when sold [5].

All in all, you’ll likely pay a premium whether you opt for a higher quality loose leaf tea or fancily packaged silky sachets. No clear winner here!

A healthier, more sustainable future for the tea bag

With all the consumer awareness around the harmful health and environmental impacts that some tea bags may have, many major tea brand players are making moves to make healthier, more sustainable tea bag options.

Because the pyramid tea bag allows for better tasting, better quality steeped tea, this market will only continue to grow at an estimated 4.5% per year from 2020 to 2030 [17 ]. However, the silver lining is a shift towards more sustainable pyramid tea bags as seen with Yorkshire Tea and Pukka. Another brand, Oteas, has opted to instead go completely waste-free, developing a tea bag that’s biodegradable, compostable, or 100% recyclable with plastic-free packaging.

This innovation is only good news for tea consumers who may not want to deal with the hassle of loose leaf teas but are also health and environmentally conscious.

For now though, the benefits of loose leaf tea typically outweigh those of tea bags, making loose leaf the way to go!

[1] Lawson, Roberta C, and Mary Mclaren. Tea-Leaf Holder. 24 Mar. 1903.
[2] “Inventive Genius : Time-Life Books .” Internet Archive, Alexandria, Va. : Time-Life Books, 1 Jan. 1991, archive.org/details/inventivegenius00time/page/99/mode/2up.
[3] Rexing, Bernd. “14. Mai 1996 - Teebeutel-Entwickler Adolf Rambold Stirbt.” WDR, Wdr.de, 7 Oct. 2015, www1.wdr.de/stichtag5332.html.
[4] “Tea Bag to Celebrate Its Century.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 13 June 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2120094/Tea-bag-to-celebrate-its-century.html#prof.
[5] Bolton, Dan, and Dan Bolton. “Tea Bags: Staid and Stable.” World Tea News, 25 Sept. 2018, worldteanews.com/tea-industry-news-and-features/tea-bags-staid-stable.
[6] Orci, Taylor. “Are Tea Bags Turning Us Into Plastic?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 June 2013, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/are-tea-bags-turning-us-into-plastic/274482/
[7] “Some Plastic with Your Tea?” Newsroom, 31 Jan. 2020, www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/some-plastic-your-tea-300919.
[8] “Those Fancy Tea Bags? Microplastics in Them Are Macro Offenders.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 30 Sept. 2019, www.theguardian.com/food/2019/sep/30/those-fancy-tea-bags-nylon-microplastics-in-them-are-macro-offenders.
[9] “Microplastics in Our Tea Bags? We Wouldn't Dare.” Stash Tea, www.stashtea.com/blogs/education/microplastics-and-tea-bags.
[10] “Epichlorohydrin.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. PubChem Compound Database, U.S. National Library of Medicine, pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/epichlorohydrin.
[11] Brent A. Bauer, M.D. “Tips to Reduce BPA Exposure.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 Dec. 2019, www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/bpa/faq-20058331.
[12] “Healthy Types of Metal for Cookware.” LIVESTRONG.COM, Leaf Group, www.livestrong.com/article/158539-healthy-types-of-metal-for-cookware/.
[13] “Teabags: Which Brands Contain Plastic? - BBC.” YouTube, BBC, 17 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0PnkwOsHkE&ab_channel=BBC.
[14] Plastic-Free Tea Bags - Clipper Teas, www.clipper-teas.com/tea-talk/plastic-free-tea-bags/.
[15] Yadav, G.U., Joshi, B.S., Patwardhan, A.W. et al. “Swelling and infusion of tea in tea bags.” J Food Sci Technol 54, 2474–2484 (2017). https://doi-org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/10.1007/s13197-017-2690-9
[16] “Does Tea Lose Its Health Benefits If It's Been Stored a Long Time? And Is It Better to Use Loose Tea or Tea Bags?” Tufts Now, 27 May 2011, now.tufts.edu/articles/tea-health-benefits-storage-time.
[17] Editor, WTN, and WTN Editor. “Report: Pyramid Tea Bag Market Is Swelling Due to Sustainable Packaging Trends.” World Tea News, 11 Nov. 2020, worldteanews.com/market-trends-data-and-insights/pyramid-tea-bag-market-2020.