TimFountain

Agreed, and then they are going to offer you some disgusting creamer to put in it. Yuck!

Shard

Why don't they just use boiling water ?

Steerpike

I think it's because they don't have 'kettles' to boil the water; they use the same gear as they do for coffee. You may not be aware, but tea drinking (especially plain old-fashioned 'black tea', like PG Tips (UK) or Liptons (US) ) is a minority passtime in the US. It's 99% coffee here. Perhaps a bit like it was in the UK for coffee, 50 years ago.

kimilseung

also, some Americans drink tisanes (infusions), mistakenly calling them teas, most tisanes do not need boiling water., this actually leads some Americans to be under the misapprehension that black tea is best brewed with non-boiling water.

Shard

I see. If it's that much of minority pastime then it's understandable. I think Canada does better, but can't be sure. A while since I've had Canadian tea.

robin1234

Not sure about this. First, the British have always been pretty big coffee drinkers. And, I don’t think I know any Americans who don’t drink hot tea, on occasion. Plenty of different styles of tea, but actual tea, not herbal infusions. We lived in Boston for many years and we have a few close friends there who are of Irish ancestry - not fresh of the boat, but maybe third or fourth generation Americans. They all drink tea British (or Irish) style - teapot, tea cosy, very strong, milk - the whole bit.

Obviously, these are just anecdotal observations. Thing is, it’s not either or for most people. Loads of people drink (both) tea and coffee. What’s not anecdotal is the supermarket shelf space devoted to tea vs. herbal infusions vs. coffee. Around here, it’s probably 1:1:2 (tea, herbal, coffee.)

kimilseung

But once you you get rid of that sachet around the bag, (we will ignore the bag itself) cut off that line and tag attached to each bag, remove the plastic and carboard tray around every 20 or so bags. Some of these boxes are a mere 20 piss-weak cups of tea. I will have to do research on cups of decent tea in an overly packaged box of tea bags compared to a box stuffed with tea bags and nothing else. I will leave you to use your University contacts to obtain my funding.

robin1234

My observation is that mass market tea in Canada is as mediocre as in the US. When we first moved to northern NY, we used to buy English Breakfast Tea from Loblaws in Canada, their own brand. After a few months I realized that it was no better than the US supermarket equivalent.

robin1234

But cheaper tea in the US is packaged just like in the UK - just tea bags, no strings, tags, or individual wraps. It’s the more expensive brands, Bigelows, for instance, that have all the unnecessary extras. Problem is (in my view) both expensive and cheap tea in the US is weak, tasteless and poor quality. (I’m just talking about black tea here.)

kimilseung

I wonder if this is regional?
In the two grocery stores I frequent (not the middle-class style stores like Trader Joes) the only option that doesn't have excessive packaging (Lipton, Red Rose et al) is Tetley British blend.

robin1234

That is what I’m wondering. Maybe northeast US is more into cheap mass-market black tea. We have the expensive packets of 20 bags, excessively packaged, but we also have several brands of cheapo tea in 40s and 80s, with no individual wrapping/tags. Including the supermarket own-brand.

robin1234

I guess another dimension is Jews, east Europeans, people from the Middle East are likely to be tea drinkers... and this describes a high proportion of the people I know in the US ....

kimilseung

Good point, I will have to check the stores on the other side of Lake Washington from Seattle, next time I am over there, in Bellevue, and Redmond, where a bigger population of South Asians live.

DaveLovesDee

Look, if you want some PG Tips sent over, just ask



kimilseung

The Tuttle Twins
Books for small kids to teach them about the Freedums that are never ever mentioned in the wider society, EVER!
A book series that is now crowdfunding for an animation series.