Teabagging Tea Lovers

Just because I like Orange Pekoe, well, I am exotic anyway.  I've never been a brand snob.  Blue Ribbon. Red Rose. Lipton. Twinnings.  Just plane old tea. It is warm welcoming. My #NoName teabags are even okay, and my jumbo bag has lasted me a few years. This week I saw some Red Rose on sale: 144 bags for $7.99.  That seemed fair so through the till we went.

I don't make a full pot anymore.  Just one bag into my to-go cup, and I usually top it up after I've poured my first into a china cup so my subsequent sips are a bit weaker.  It is good!  Don't cringe!

Of course, it is 2020. I compost all my kitchen organic matter. Yesterday, two tea bags were draining in the corner of my sink, before I would plunk them into my compost.  I went to pick them up, and heard this strange crinkling sound.  I had never heard a teabag crinkle before.

My mind wandered to some eco-discussions about the Stash (and other) high end teabags that had been made from plastic, and yes indeed, we'd begun ingesting these micro plastics.  But no.  Not my lowly orange pekoe teabags with no string and no wrapper!  But what about that crinkly noise?

I picked them up and moved them around. I even recorded the sound (Play button is at the bottom of the story.) CrinkleCrinkle.  Yes.  These teabags looked like any teabag I'd seen since birth.  The Red Rose Tea Co. (a subsidiary of Unilever!) had duped me! Grrrr.  I was  using plastic teabags.  I yanked the one that was already in my compost out of the pail, to protect my rich soil-to-be.

Then I began freeing the rest of my orange pekoe from their plastic prisons.  Yes, all 144 prisons.  I do know that supposedly the tea we drink in these square bags is the dregs.  The sweepings from the tea-processing floor.  I already confessed though, I'm not a tea snob. I can buy tea pearls, sun dried green tea, organic and fair trade.  But this tea tastes like my life.  (btw - This box of tea boasted "Rain Forest Alliance Certified" - so there are some ethics, just not the plastic-free ethic.)  I set up a work station.  Scissors, Tea capture plate, plastic capture bin, and so began to de-package 418 grams of tea from those little white sachets.

Before my great tea release, I'd measured how much dry orange pekoe was in each bag.  For my next cup of tea, I measured that into a tweezer-style tea-ball that was seldom used.  It will be getting called into action much more frequently as these 418 grams get steeped into my morning pick-me-up.

Shame on the teabaggers for forcing me to use my tea-ball.  I doubt there will be a return to the paper tea bags that were safe for my compost. Are plastic tea bags a sign of progress or digress or egress or devolution?  

In my mind I can hear the VP of production and the VP of marketing and the VP of finance having the conversation. These bags are cheaper!  We'll have to revamp our whole production line!  Make them identical because we'll have to keep this change secret from our customers.  And I think they succeeded.  The petroleum bi-products industry found a whole new customer, or maybe they are made from recycled pop bottles.  Now, is that justification?

Time for some tea to ponder that circular thinking.

Listen to the Crinkly Teabags: