Intro to Loose Leaf | Make Your Own Tea Blend Ep.1

Today I’m going to give you a brief overview of loose leaf tea. First off, what is loose leaf tea? Well, it is basically the stuff inside a tea bag, mainly teas and spices mixed together into a blend. Before the tea bag was invented in 1908, everyone made tea with loose leaf. In place of tea bags, they used a variety of different infusers and methods for keeping the leaves out of the final product. While this was a bit more involved than throwing a tea bag in a cup of hot water, the quality of the final product was so much higher. As the tea bag became more and more ubiquitous the quality of ingredients eroded and more and more artificial flavorings found there way in. A good comparison is tea bags are to loose leaf as instant coffee is to espresso. There are hundreds of different ingredients that are used all over the world in different cultures to make teas with different flavors and medicinal qualities and with loose leaf you can explore all of them. So, using white, green, oolong, black, and pur eh teas and a plethora of other herbs and spices we can create special custom teas that are higher quality, and are so much better tasting than what you get in the store from a tea bag you’ll wonder why you did try it sooner.

Now, all this is wonderful but where can you buy loose leaf tea? Generally, health food stores, especially ones with bulk spices will carry them. There are also dedicated tea stores although these are much rarer but often will have the best selection. And if all else fails there are a number of online places that can supply any and everything you will ever need. I’ll leave some links in the description.

As for spices they can be found just about anywhere from supermarkets to specialty shops and everywhere in between. Common spices like powdered cinnamon or ginger can really amp up a tea blend and easy to come by.

So, with this video, we are kicking off a series on how to blend and brew loose leaf teas. Our next video will cover all the ingredients we will be using as well as the equipment used to make the tea. From there we will release a series of videos featuring different blends for you to follow along at home. And as always, thanks for coming along with us in going beyond the bag.

Our Blog: http://beyondthebag.net/
Our Instagram: @beyond.the.bag