Loose Leaf Versus Bags

The difference is less about virtue than about leaf size and room to expand.

Standard teabags contain dust and fannings - the smallest grades left after sorting. Small particles have enormous surface area, so they extract very fast and very completely, which produces a strong cup in ninety seconds and also extracts tannins quickly, so the window between strong and bitter is narrow. The aromatic compounds, which are volatile, have largely escaped from broken leaf long before it reaches you.

Whole leaf extracts more slowly and more gradually, holds its aromatics longer, and can usually be steeped more than once.

The other issue is space. A tightly packed flat bag does not allow leaf to unfurl, and unfurled leaf is what extraction needs. Pyramid bags with whole leaf are a genuine improvement and a perfectly reasonable middle ground.

None of this means teabags are bad. For a strong mug of builder’s tea with milk, CTC in a bag is arguably the right tool. But if you want to taste what a tea actually is, use whole leaf.

Buying

Buy small quantities. 50 to 100g at a time. Tea fades, and a 500g bag bought for value will be tired long before you finish it. This is the most common mistake in an enthusiastic first order.

Buy recent. For green teas especially, the harvest year matters, and good sellers state it. A Japanese green from two seasons ago is a different and worse drink.

Look at the leaf. Whole leaves rather than broken fragments and dust, some visual consistency, a clear smell when you open the packet. Green teas should look green, not brown or grey.

Buy samples. Most decent merchants sell 10 to 25g sample sizes. A sample of six teas teaches you your own preferences faster than any description, and descriptions in tea copy are notoriously optimistic.

Approach flavoured tea with mild caution. Heavy flavouring is sometimes used to cover indifferent base leaf. Good flavoured teas exist; the perfume should be pleasant rather than overwhelming when the packet is opened.

Exceptions to buying small: aged pu-erh and heavily roasted oolongs, which keep for years and in some cases improve.

Storage

Tea has four enemies: air, light, heat, and moisture. A fifth, for tea specifically, is strong smells, because dry leaf absorbs odours readily.

Airtight and opaque. A tin with a tight lid, or a double-lidded caddy. Glass jars look attractive on a shelf and let light destroy the leaf; if you use them, keep them in a cupboard.

Cool and dark, away from the cooker. The cupboard above the hob is the worst place in the kitchen and is where most people keep their tea.

Away from coffee, spices, and anything aromatic. Tea stored next to ground coffee will taste of coffee within weeks.

Not in the fridge, with one exception. Condensation forms on cold leaf when the container is opened, and moisture is what actually spoils tea. High-grade Japanese greens are sometimes refrigerated sealed, but they must be brought fully to room temperature before opening.

Realistic lifespans in good storage: green and white tea, six to twelve months, and noticeably better in the first six. Oolong, one to two years, roasted ones longer. Black tea, two to three years. Pu-erh, indefinitely, and stored loosely wrapped rather than airtight, because it wants a little air exchange.

Herbals fade too - peppermint and chamomile lose their character within a year.

Old tea is not unsafe. It is simply flat. Use it for cold brewing or for cooking.

Equipment

Worth owning:

A variable-temperature kettle, if you buy one thing. It removes the largest source of error permanently.

A small digital scale reading to 0.1g. Cheap, and it makes your brewing repeatable.

A vessel that gives the leaf room. This is the important quality, more than material or price. A teapot with a wide built-in strainer, a large basket infuser that fills the mug, or simply a jug you pour through a mesh sieve. Avoid tea balls and small clip infusers: they compress the leaf into a lump, most of which never contacts the water properly.

A thermometer, if the kettle is a plain one.

Nice but not necessary:

A gaiwan - the lidded Chinese brewing bowl - which is the traditional vessel for repeated short steepings, is inexpensive, and takes about an afternoon to stop scalding your fingers with.

A small glass teapot, which lets you watch the leaf open and is genuinely useful for judging strength.

Unglazed clay pots such as yixing, which are absorbent and season to one type of tea over time. A late purchase, not an early one.

Not necessary:

Most electric tea makers, most novelty infusers, and anything that squeezes the leaf.

A Note on Milk, Sugar, and Lemon

There is a strain of tea writing that treats these as errors. It is not a useful position.

Milk works with strong fully oxidised black teas - Assam, Ceylon, breakfast blends, CTC - because the proteins bind to tannins and soften the astringency. That is a real chemical effect and the reason the tradition exists. Milk in a delicate green, oolong, or Darjeeling flattens exactly the aromatics you paid for, but it is your cup.

Lemon lightens the colour of black tea by changing its acidity and cuts through richness.

The one thing genuinely worth doing is tasting a new tea plain first, at least once, so you know what it is before deciding what it needs.