MmePerdu

I suspect discussing tea is a bit like discussing religion or politics, more holding forth than discussing. But having been briefly in the tea blending & packaging end of the industry I know a bit. How strong a tea brews in the pot or cup, assuming we're talking about the same tea (darjeeling, ceylon, assam, kenya, etc) depends on the size of the particles. Most tea bags are produced from "fannings", the smallest particles, so it stands to reason that small particles, having the most surface area by weight, will brew strongest. One needs a great deal more tea by weight of loose leaf for it to brew as strong as a bag (again by weight, a "teabag" not being a measure. Some have more tea than others so aren't comparable). Broken leaves will come in somewhere between, having more brewing surface than whole leaf & considerably less than the fannings in a teabag.

Regarding quality, higher end teabags will have better quality tea, occasionally whole leaf but more often smaller pieces but bigger than the lowly fannings (almost powder) in a commercial teabag.

All this to say, you can have good quality teabags, even excellent, like Mariage Freres, or poor. It isn't the the fact of it being in a bag that determines quality or strength, it's the quality of the tea inside, how much tea is in the bag and where it's grown.

Aren't you glad you asked? Lecture over.

kerouac

I found that much more informative than most of the opinions express here, MmePerdu. Thank you.

kerouac

express = expressed

annhig

<<Who is this person? Is it a new screen name for an old ______?

Or maybe a sock puppet.>>

How strange. A response by Mme P ? about our "new" friend's possible history here, and my response thereto have been censored by our mods. I can't imagine why - we were extremely polite, unless "poking a bear with a stick" [which is the only bit of my post that i can remember] is now considered rude/not permitted within the rules of Fodors.

<<I am not much of a tea drinker, but I would like to know what horrible thing happens when tea has to filter through a bag, since apparently it must, considering some of the replies here.>>

I too am grateful to Mme P for her erudition. Those who eschew tea bags in the UK often do so because of the old idea that the contents were the sweepings from the tea factory floor; I'm glad to see that dispelled.

Despite however my new-found knowledge about the existence of Marriage Freres, I shall be sticking to coffee whenever I am in Paris.

kerouac

And that is of course just as much a local French crop as tea.

WeisserTee

Really, Ann, you won't even give MF a try? Seems rather insular and a bit close minded. We love trying highly recommended local tea brands on our travels. Our fav so far is TWG, which we enjoyed almost every day during our two weeks in Singapore earlier this year. twgtea.com

MmePerdu

I'll add to what I said above that my usual is PG Tips Gold, which I find just a shade tastier than regular PG Tips. I'm not a great fan, despite my education, of whole-leaf tea as I prefer blends in bags and think Mariage Freres and the like a waste of money, like many of the raised-pinky variety. Not to say people who like them are wrong, strictly my own preference. I do have some at home but what I like most is a nice builders' brew, milk & sugar please.

I have Chinese teas in my cupboard, most bought in China, especially puerh (google it), but that's a whole other story. Keemun & Yunnan black teas are nice with milk & sugar for an occasional change of pace. But don't let a purist see you drink it that way! I hide at home and have it any way I like.

janisj

annhig: >> . . . here, and my response thereto have been censored by our mods. I can't imagine why <<

I don't think it had anything to do w/ your responses. I saw the 'un-cut' thread and it was a whole series of posts mainly by bvh and massimop plus some other responses/reactions from 'normal people'

It looks like the whole spat was deleted.

MmePerdu

"It looks like the whole spat was deleted."

I was glad to have mine gone too and would have requested it if it hadn't been gone already when I got up. One of those that fun in the moment but tedious ultimately, it went on after our English contributors were fast asleep.

Annhig, back to tea, do you know about Tregothnan tea in Cornwall? I have a bag of loose, but not whole leaf, I bought when I was there. https://tregothnan.co.uk/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddr...-any-good.html

http://www.greatgardensofcornwall.co...ns/tregothnan/

annhig

<<And that is of course just as much a local French crop as tea>>

of course, kerouac, but the French make it much better than they make tea, IMHO.

lol, WT, this is no more "local" than Liptons, etc. It all comes from India/Sri Lanka etc and is blended to meet local tastes. The fact is that the French/Swiss/Italian taste in tea is very different to the British and I've endured more than enough cups of gnat's p..s in my time to know that when I'm in countries that IMO don't do tea well, [I've no objection to other people including my DH drinking it] I'm going to stick to coffee.

When in HK [not made it to Singapore yet] I happily gave local brews a go - the english style tea we had for breakfast must have been ok because I don't remember it, and i love green tea with chinese food. [and campari and soda - don't knock till you've tried it!]

<<And that is of course just as much a local French crop as tea>>

of course, kerouac, but the French make it much better than they make tea, IMHO.

Mme P/JJ - I missed the spat, probably a good thing though on occasion it can be fun to watch two irritating people irritating each other!

As for Tregothnan tea, it's not something that is really aimed at the "local" market - I've only bought it when I want a fun present for someone else. I've both seen it growing and drunk it, and it's a fine tea, but the blend available commercially is heavily "cut" with imported tea else it would be even more expensive than it already is.

Trying to persuade tea growers in Sri Lanka that we grew tea in England was very funny - we might just as well have been trying to persuade them that rice grows in Italy. [insert irony flag here]. It is of course made from exactly the same plant - camellia sinenis - which grows as well in Cornwall as it does in China and all the other parts of the world where it's grown for tea production, so there's no reason that wherever you can grow camellias, you can't produce tea.

annhig

oops - don't know why my response to kerouac posted twice. Apologies.

bvlenci

There are several reasons why I prefer loose tea.

I feel, maybe unreasonably, that the tea has better contact with the water when the leaves can spread out, rather than be bunched up in a bag.

I can use exactly the amount of tea I want.

I almost always make my tea in a pot, scalded before making the tea, and the advantages of a tea bag apply mainly to tea made in a cup. I have some tea balls, which I use when I want just one cup of tea. However, the cup loses too much heat.

Tea bags tend to have excessive packaging. For the same reason, I make my coffee in a moka instead of buying capsules.

bvlenci

Mme. Perdu, I also like Pu-Ehr tea, which I got to know when I used to spend a lot of time in China. I make it differently than my strong, black, Irish-style tea. My Chinese colleagues used to put the leaves in the bottom of a big cup (with a lid) and pour hot, not boiling, water over them. The freshened it up with additional hot water, for hours, so it was never really strong.

In hotels in China, each room had a big glass-lined, enamelled thermos. You placed it outside your door at night, and in the morning it was full of hot water. Many Chinese people start the day with a cup of hot water, while others used it to make the first tea of the day. In later years, the hotels were abandoning the traditional thermoses in favor of carafes, which didn't really keep the water hot. For the sake of nostalgia, I bought one of the enamelled thermoses and brought it home with me.

WeisserTee

"lol, WT, this is no more "local" than Liptons, etc"

LOL yourself, Ann, for not reading a post properly. I did not say "local tea", I said "local tea BRANDS". Big difference. And FWIW, TWG serves teas from around the world, including Hawaii.

And do what you want. Even though MF is rated highly by many tea lovers inside AND outside France, if you are determined to cling to your (inaccurate) stereotype that the French are incapable of making a decent pot of tea, fine, it's your holiday.

sanjanareji

As a South Indian, I like tea the most. As well as I prefer Agarwood tea. It has many health benefits. You can choose tea, according to your choice. TWG and Agarharvest serve several types of teas around the world, including France I think. OR you can go to nearest supermarkets.