Frequently Asked Questions:

 What are teabags made of?

Teabags began as sewn silk bags, but nowadays  are made from abaca pulp paper, or sometimes a faux-silk nylon. Like traditional silk, these materials are both thin, porous and remain strong when soaked in water. 

How are they sealed? 

Paper Tea Bags:
Teabag paper is usually abaca (from the banana species) leaf fibre pulp, and is coated on one side with a really thin layer of thermoplastic. Applying heat and pressing creates the sealed bags we know and love. Have a look at the next teabag you pick up, and you should see little neat lines at the edges from the heat press.

Wait, stop the stagecoach- There's plastic in tea bags?!

Yes, there is plastic in all paper tea bags. A solution has yet to be created which big companies will take on, and as soon as they do the industry at large will be forced to change its ways. Until then, we can offer 100% renewable cotton teabags for just 10p each.

Nylon Tea Bags:
One of the newest developments in teabag materials is a finely woven nylon type fabric. It can be heat sealed, although extraction has to be applied to limit fumes from heating it. Some very expensive machinery can even seal nylon bags with ultra-sonic vibration. How mad is that!

An order in progress

Spring Season Tea Bags

Here's how we make them.

We don't have a big machine to do anything for us, it's just Kev and myself, looking resplendent in our hair nets and aprons.

We make our bags from scratch, so we start with a huge roll of unbleached teabag filter paper and some measuring and cutting equipment. The type of tea we are using is measured into each new tea bag strip, the next in line is sealed, and so on. Regular weighing ensures our tea bags are filled just right. 

Our little hand press heat sealer seals our bags, and is the only machine we use. It also gives our tea bags their characteristic deep ridges, and a good strong seal.

It might be quaint and gentle compared to factory production, but with refinement of our process, we can now produce between 150 and 200 packaged tea bags an hour, up to 1000 a day.

Our method has some big advantages over the automated line, too. Some fine teas have larger ingredients than others, good quality Sencha has long tea leaves for example, and it will not easily flow through automated dispensers. Because our bags are filled by hand, even the most shapely teas are no trouble at all. We can therefore offer bags filled with large leaves, giant fruit pieces and whole flower blossoms.

New unbleached tea bags

Thanks to a great development, all our tea bags are now made from a more environmentally friendly, neutral coloured paper. You'll have heard it being called 'unbleached paper', and that's exactly what it is.

Most types of bright white paper are made using a bleach whitening process. This is chemically intensive and not great for the environment, so we are really pleased to be making the change.

We make them just the same by hand, with the same great tea and for the same price. Just better bags as standard.

Let us know what you think of the new look...

New unbleached paper bags

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Let's talk about plastic in tea bags

Chamomile tea bag, made from normal white bleached abaca pulp filter paper

The big issue

You'll have probably heard lately about people's growing concern over the plastic in tea bags, how we here in the UK dispose of the millions per day we use, and how it affects the environment as it degrades.

All paper tea bags have thin plastic coatings to seal them, and the other popular alternative seems to be to make the whole bag from Nylon, which doesn't biodegrade well at all. That wasn't what we wanted, so we opted for the most friendly paper we could find, but our tea bags still have a plastic coating for sealing.

Troubles with composting

If you're a gardener, you may have a small compost heap at home.  You might have noticed that tea bags don't fully degrade, and this is likely because the plastic coatings are not breaking down properly. I have noticed that even when they do, only the middle of the bag fully disintegrates. Even if they did fully degrade, the idea of plastics going into the soil of your garden is less than pleasant, so there is another way.

Home composting is quite different to industrial composting. Home compost heaps are usually very small, whereas larger industrial compost sites generate much more heat from the decomposing material, better degrading things like tea bags. This is why tea bags appear on the lists for compostable food waste on council collection bins, but are usually advised against by home gardeners.

10 year old home compost, with recognisable eggshell pieces, and tea bag paper

Compost conclusion

It is better to put your tea bags into your food waste bins collected by your local council if they are provided in your area, because this can be sent to an industrial composting site. If you don't have council food waste collection in your area and still want to compost your tea, simply tear open the tea bag and add only the contents to your compost. Until we can find a better way to make tea bags, it's a little extra effort for a lot more peace of mind for your garden.

What else can we do?

Loose tea is the best solution to this overall, and there are some great designs out there for infusing your tea in the most environmentally friendly way imaginable. Many will still wish for the convenience of the tea bag, and the next best alternative then is to use muslin or silk cloth, and go back to sewing tea bags. This is a very time consuming and expensive way to make them, and while it would be great to be able to supply them like this, not everyone could afford to buy their tea bags sewn from fabrics.

Everything is possible

If you really do wish for your tea in a plastic free bag, then do get in touch, because we can now provide them in any amount for 10p each.  The first ever tea bag samples we made were just like these, machine sewn with cotton thread, and their charms are sure to impress even your most environmentally aware tea guests.