Tea bag brewing

How it works

One bag per 200 to 250 ml, water at or near boiling for the black and CTC tea most bags contain, two to three minutes with an occasional agitation, then the bag is removed. Squeezing the bag against the side of the mug forces out concentrated, astringent liquid held in the leaf and generally makes the cup harsher rather than stronger.

Why choose it

It is fast, portioned, needs nothing and produces a consistent result. Judged as a delivery format rather than as a compromised version of loose leaf, it does its job well.

Equipment

No vessel is recorded as required for this method. Browse teaware for what is commonly used, including what to reach for when the traditional object is not to hand.

Tea types it suits

Recorded on the method rather than inferred from the catalogue. A type missing here is not ruled out; it simply has not been written down.

• Black tea

Common problems

• Squeezing the bag, which extracts the harshest fraction last
• Leaving the bag in while drinking, so the last mouthfuls are stewed
• Expecting a flat bag to give whole leaf room to open — most cannot, which is why bagged tea is usually made from cut leaf

Diagnosed problems

Written from the symptom, with the likely causes in order and a question to rule each one out.

• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.
• My tea came out too strong — can I just add water? — A cup or pot is far stronger than intended, and the obvious response is to dilute it.
• My tea disappears when I add milk — A tea that tasted fine on its own becomes a pale, vaguely sweet milk drink with no tea character left in it.
• My tea is drying and puckering rather than bitter — The tea makes the mouth feel dry and rough, gripping the tongue and cheeks, without necessarily tasting bitter.
• My tea is harsh and I cannot tell whether it is bitter or astringent — The cup is unpleasant in a way that is hard to name, and every piece of advice about it assumes you already know which of the two words applies.
• My tea tastes flat and I reboiled the kettle — A cup made from water that had already been boiled once tastes dull, and the internet is confident that this is why.
• My tea tastes of chlorine, metal or the kettle — A chemical, swimming-pool or metallic note sits over the tea, and it is there whichever tea is brewed.
• Tea from the office boiler or the hot tap never tastes right — The same tea that works at home is thin, flat or stewed when made from a plumbed hot tap, a wall boiler or a catering urn.
• The leaves swell up and push out of the infuser — Wet leaf lifts the lid off the basket, escapes round the edges, or packs so tightly that water barely passes through.
• There is an oily film on the surface of my tea — An iridescent or dull skin sits on the surface of a cup or pot, breaking into patches when disturbed and clinging to the side as the level drops.
• We fitted a water softener and the tea got worse — Since a softener was installed the kettle stays clean and the tea tastes flat, slightly salty or oddly soft, with the brightness gone.

Teas with parameters authored for this method

30 teas have a parameter set written for tea bag brewing, in alphabetical order. Each row is transcribed from that tea’s own record.

Other western methods

Same family, so the approach is close — the vessel, the ratio and the intent still differ.

• Herbal infusion (tisane) — Steeping leaves, flowers or fruit that are not Camellia sinensis. The method looks like tea brewing and follows different rules, because the material has none of the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time.
• Korean green tea brewing — A low-temperature approach to Korean green tea in which the water is cooled through a separate open vessel before it ever meets the leaf, and the pot is emptied entirely into the cups each time. Darye names the etiquette; the brewing approach below is shared by everyday practice outside any formal setting.
• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.
• Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
• Mug infuser brewing — Loose leaf in a basket inside a mug — the most common way loose tea is actually made, and the method most often responsible for people concluding that loose leaf is not worth the trouble.
• Sweet tea (American Southern style) — Black tea brewed hot and strong as a concentrate, sweetened while it is still hot, then diluted with cold water and chilled. It is a regional American household staple, and the sequence of those four steps is the whole method — rearranging them produces a different and worse drink.
• Western brewing (teapot or mug) — A small amount of leaf in a large volume of water, steeped once for a few minutes and then strained off. The approach most English-speaking drinkers already know, and the one most teas sold in the West are made for.

Sources