How long should you leave a teabag in?

Just the title of this is going to infuriate Robert Godden, but I can't get around it. Hopefully he's so busy with his budding tea empire that he won't notice.

Although I only drink loose-leaf tea at home, I travel quite a lot and there are times when a teabag is simply the most practical option.

Also, I write this blog partly for the tea curious and the tea newcomer. They normally start with teabags. I can point out the subpar tea that's normally in a teabag. I can admonish them and insist that the whole experience of loose-leaf tea is far superior. I can say all I want, but my experience so far is that when starting out people go to their nearest supermarket and buy teabags.

This is for them.

Incidentally, not every teabag is created equal. This is something I remember seeing in a video from Cindi Bigelow at Bigelow Tea called How do you know you are drinking high quality tea? 


Here it is:

I assure you that I'm getting no financial compensation from Bigelow Tea for including that (this'd be a terrible ad anyway - I'm only using the clip as an example of how some teabags really are better than others).

Back to my original question: How long should you leave a teabag in?


Some really love to know exact timings for such things, but my friend Joe told me the way he knows his teabag's ready. He leaves it in for a while and then pulls the teabag out and looks to see if the water dripping off the bag is still brown. If it is, there's more tea goodness in there.

If there are drops of clear water dropping off the teabag, that teabag's tapped. Time to throw it out. No timer. No bother with water temperature and the like. Boiling hot water and leave the teabag in there till the water's clear.

Sounds simple enough. It really is.

Teai Boynoy? Huh?

Teai Boynoy? What's that?

First of all, it's been just a bit hectic here. There was a time when I posted something on the teablog everyday because I read somewhere that if you want to build readership, you should consistently have new content. Although I enjoyed doing it, the result was that I wrote a lot about tea, but I incorporated things going on in my life and how they (often tangentially) related to tea. If at all.

Then there was a time when I posted every second or third day, and that's actually more my goal. The last post about predicting someone's taste in tea based upon their other tastes is going to be a recurring theme. It's something that interesting to a lot of people and that hopefully will create a bit of dialogue.

After writing it, I realised that tea sellers must do this sort of thing all the time. Someone wanders into the shop, says that he's curious about tea, and the tea seller has to decide what might be the best option for this stranger. What does one do in that situation?

So because I write quite a bit about luring people over to the leaf-side here, and because I talk with quite a few non-tea people over on twitter, I get a lot of questions. For example, at the weekend there was an urgent message from a blogger I know called Jim. It read, 'quick! At the store...Name a couple of good commercially available teas for a tea virgin to try.'

I asked him my questions about how he took his coffee and whether he liked spicy food, and he responded with, 'coffee bold/rich cream and a bit of sugar, food spicy'. Now we were getting somewhere. He gave me a list of what was available, and I told him the brand I knew best.

But in the process I mentioned it on twitter, and of course there were people who responded to my query with pleas that Jim not go the way of teabags. That he wouldn't get the full experience and that it'd turn him off of tea entirely.

But there was Jim, standing in the aisle, not knowing where the tea filters were, or if there even were any, and not much more time to bother with hunting for tea. I'd gone to the website of the brand I knew best, and recommended the nicest loose-leaf teas I could imagine from their selection, but ultimately it was just too much. A package of English Breakfast blend was chosen, and I think it was the right choice.

My position on all of this is that the less fussy we are at the outset, the more an individual can develop his own tastes. I've suggested Jim try a sip or two of the tea before he adds any cream or sugar, but I actually think that drinking his English Breakfast blend with a bit of cream and sugar will slowly get him used to the taste of tea.

Why do I think that? Well, that's how I got into tea. I didn't start out by walking into a specialty tea shop and walk straight over to the High Mountain Oolong. Not sure how I would've responded to all that in the early days, anyway.

So the photo up above is something I've written about briefly in you needn't climb a mountain. It's not Teai Boynoy in English...that's actually Greek Mountain Tea. I'm rarely ever ill, but I've had a light cold and held onto this package for just such a situation. Unlike Geoff Norman (@lazy_literatus), who drinks his with proper Greek honey, I've had to settle for good old German honey. With a bit of Vitamin C powder for good measure.

Here's the package turned round to display the script you can likely more easily read:

basic tea gear for a tea newcomer

Several weeks ago, I received a question from someone new to my blog.  It was just a general 'What's the best way to brew this stuff?' question, but my heart sank a bit when she indicated that she, her name's Elizabeth, only had teabags and really only wanted to brew up a cup at a time.

Nothing wrong with that, despite what Robert Godden might tell you, but once you've really been convinced about loose-leaf tea, it's difficult to get excited about teabags.  I've been suitably polite about how some teabags from some brands aren't that bad, but even I have a hard time actually believing it most of the time.

Today, I got another question from Elizabeth.  It was more along the lines of, 'How do I get into tea?'  Which really means, 'What sort of stuff do I need to do this right?'

I'm going to keep this blogpost as short as I can.  I 'd like to keep it as simple as possible.  One of the things I try to do with this blog is to pass exactly this sort of information on to people relatively new to tea.  Well, loose-leaf tea especially.

Firstly, I'll ask you loyal readers how you'd answer this question.  How would you introduce drinking tea brewed from whole leaf?

I use filter bags quite a lot.  Especially when I travel.  And I like to have them around for everyday use.  Especially with most black tea, I don't think it really matters.

But with any whole leaf tea, some enjoy watching the full leaves open up as they steep almost as much as they like actually drinking the tea.  For that, a glass teapot where the leaves can swim around freely would be ideal.  If you don't already have one, I'm not sure I'd recommend going out and getting one.

Let's make sure you like this tea drinking lark first, ok?

So my advice is to get a Finum Brewing Basket. The largest size is ideal because then you can make both smaller and larger amounts.  There are certainly other brands.  This is simply the one I know.  And I'd get that permanent tea filter basket first before choosing a teapot.  Just to make sure they fit one another.

Here's my Finum Brewing Basket

And what sort of pot?  I don't know what the rest of you think about this, but the simplest ceramic pot should be good for starting out.  Why not?

I'm sure you can find a Brown Betty or something similar from a variety of sources.  I'm not a teapot fanatic, so maybe one of the rest of you has better advice for this question.

Ok Elizabeth, once you have a few basic pieces of tea gear, we'll move on to the actual tea.  Curious how easy this is for you specifically and if anyone else reading this has additional ideas generally.