Loose leaf vs tea bags: which is better for herbal tea?

Short answer: neither, consistently. We sell both on purpose. The part of this question actually worth arguing about is not leaf versus bag — it is what the bag is made of, and almost nobody checks.

What is really inside a tea bag

Loose leaf is whole or large-cut leaf, flower and herb. Most tea bags are filled with what the trade calls fannings and dust — the small fragments left over after processing. Smaller pieces have more surface area, so they give up their flavour faster and in a narrower band. That is why bagged tea brews quickly, and why it turns bitter if you forget about it.

It is a real difference and worth knowing. It is not a universal one: plenty of bagged tea is cut coarse, and pyramid bags exist precisely to give larger pieces room to move.

The part nobody checks: what the bag is made of

A paper tea bag is frequently not only paper. Many are sealed shut with polypropylene rather than folded or stapled, and some are not paper at all — the smooth, silky pyramid ones are usually woven from nylon or PET.

That has been measured. A 2019 study in Environmental Science & Technology steeped plastic mesh teabags at brewing temperature and found a single bag released roughly 11.6 billion microplastic particles into one cup of water.

What those particles do inside a person is not settled, and we are not going to tell you it is. The material question is settled, and it is one you can answer before you buy.

Every bagged tea we stock is plastic-free, biodegradable and staple-free. It is written on all seventeen product pages under "Good to know", because that is the sort of thing that should be checkable rather than implied.

What loose leaf gives you that a bag cannot

Control, mostly. You set the quantity, so you decide whether a cup comes out light or strong. A good blend will often take a second steep. And you can see exactly what is in it — whole chamomile flowers, cut ginger, pieces of apple — instead of taking a sealed sachet's word for it.

The price of that control is a strainer, an infuser or a pot, and a minute at the end dealing with wet leaves. Whether that reads as a pleasure or a chore is a matter of temperament, and we are not going to pretend there is a correct answer.

Which one costs less

Loose leaf usually looks dearer on the shelf and lands closer than the shelf price suggests, because you control the dose and can often re-steep. It does not automatically work out cheaper. Compare cost per cup rather than cost per tin, and do it blend by blend, because the gap moves.

What we stock, and why we stock both

• Seventeen bagged — the Miracle Tree moringa line, 25 plastic-free bags to a box
• Ten loose leaf — PAAVANI and Birdsong, in tins, whole leaf with the ingredients visible
• One that is neither — The Brew Company's Teabrewer, a flat pouch you pour hot water straight into and then pour out of. No pot, no infuser, nothing to fish out afterwards

A bag on a Tuesday morning and a pot at the weekend is a perfectly coherent way to drink tea. Start wherever suits: Cutting caffeine, Sleep, Iced, or all of it.