The Everyday Tea DrinkerGuide To Good Taste On A Budget
If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you. ~Gladstone, 1865
I dedicate this page to all who understand the joy of a good cup of tea.
Tea Economics 101
If you have recently begun trying different teas from your local grocer and have gone online to find reviews of your favorites or ideas for new tastes, you may be feeling a little alone and discouraged. Your friends are wondering why you are no longer interested in spending $5 on a cup of coffee and why you keep buying all those weird teas. Most of the websites are telling you if you don’t use loose leaf you aren’t really drinking tea but you have heard it is terribly expensive and besides your grocer only stocks bagged tea. Still, you are wondering if you are missing something and if it is worth the expense of ordering premium loose leaf tea online like all the cool kids are doing. I hope this article will help. Welcome to Tea Economics 101. There will be no tests, no grades, and no tuition, unless of course you just feel inclined to send me large sums of money.
I remember in my younger days when buying a box of Bigelow at the grocery store was as close to premium tea as one could get. The only other tea found in our town was Lipton Brisk, a staple for iced tea, and Nestea instant, which was a staple for those who didn’t drink tea. Flash forward a couple decades and the variety has improved a bit in small town America, as the shelves now also include a small selection of Stash, Tazo, and Twinings along with a house brand tea. Thanks to the Internet, there is also a world of bagged teas available beyond the local stores, and a great many suppliers selling loose leaf blends that are touted as being far superior to bag teas. The prices you find will vary wildly, from appealing to appalling. Things sure have gotten a lot more complicated than Constant Comment or Lemon Lift. So how are we supposed to know a good deal when we see it?
Let’s start with the economics of grocery store bagged tea. At my local supermarket, the average boxed tea will cost from $2.25 to $4. Even the teas found at the local ethnic food store can be purchased for mostly under $5. I enjoy a great many of these teas but are they a good bargain? To answer that we need a way to compare the prices to determine the best value for our dollar.
CAUTION MATH AHEAD!
I can purchase a box of Twinings locally for $2.25. There are 20 bags in each box. $2.25/20 = $0.11 per tea bag [total price / number bags = cost per bag]. Stash costs $4.00 locally (I have seen it a lot cheaper out of town). It contains 18 bags. $4/18 = $0.22 per bag. A $5 box of tea from the ethnic food store costs $0.25 a bag ($5/20 = $0.25). While that is a 14 cent range, even at a quarter a bag it’s not bad considering a can of pop from a vending machine costs at least twice as much, and it ain’t tea. Compared to many other beverages, tea bags are quite a bargain, but some bargains are better than others.
Cost per bag is an important comparison guide but not all bags are created equal. There is more to consider. A box of Twinings contains 1.4oz (40g), which is fairly typical for most tea sold in America. A box of Stash often contains only 0.89oz (25.2g) some contain even less – yikes! Stash has less bags per box, does that resolve the weight issue? Doing the math [total oz / number bags = ounces per bag], a Twinings bag contains 0.07oz or 2grams (1.4oz/20 = 0.07) and a bag of Stash contains 0.05oz. (1.4g). Stash costs twice as much per cup yet has only 70% as much tea per bag. Even if you find Stash for the same price, it still contains a lot less tea per bag and fewer bags.
Does this mean the least expensive box containing the most tea is always the better value? Not necessarily. It is true the small bags of tea will leave you begging for a more generous portion of leaves, but on rare occasions a small size bag mysteriously seem to work for that particular blend. On my review page I review many Stash blends favorably despite their containing only 70% of the tea they should contain. Yet, I almost always wonder how much better they could have been with a more generous portion. On the other hand, some company’s teas are of such poor quality or their blends so unbalanced that no matter how much tea is in the bag it will never make a pleasant cup of tea. Cheaper and bigger is not a bargain if it tastes bad.
As a general rule the bigger bag is preferred. You can always reduce the steeping time to adjust the strength of the brew but leaving a small tea bag in the water longer trying to compensate will almost always result in a still weak but bitter cup. Another general rule that goes along with the first is poor quality tea will always tastes like poor quality tea.
If you are a frugal shopper and have the luxury of a well stocked tea aisle, you may notice some brands of tea come in various size boxes besides the usual 20 bag box. Other common sizes include 10, 50, and 100 bags per box. You can generally assume the larger the box, the lower the per bag cost. Do the math [total price / number bags = cost per bag]. It is not unheard of to cut the cost per bag in half when buying in a larger box but it is not a bargain if it goes stale before you use it. I generally buy my main everyday go to tea in large quantity and my less often used teas in a single box of 20. The 10 packs are great for trying new blends but are a bit more pricey per bag.
Now that we know how to compare the prices on our grocer’s shelves, let’s go to the Internet. Ordering online gives you a great many more options in the choice of companies, blends, quality, and prices. Even the brands you buy locally can often be found online at a lower cost. But think carefully before clicking. Besides the desire to support a local business, the lowest initial price may not be the best bargain in the long run. Figuring out the economics of online tea can be a little more involved than simply the web page price.
With Internet tea, unless you already know you like a particular tea, you may be taking a bit of an expensive gamble. If you don’t venture out you might be missing your next favorite, but no matter how low the price, you are not saving any money if the tea just sits in the back of the cupboard. I have found some inexpensive teas I thought were quite pleasant, however, you get what you pay for is true more often than not. Yet, don’t assume just because you spend a lot for a tea it will be great. No reputable company intentionally makes a blend that tastes bad, but not every blend appeals to every drinker. I have had some pricey teas that to my tastes were undrinkable.
Shipping charges are as important, if not more, than price per box when considering an Internet tea. You find a tea of interest at a great price. Add it to your shopping cart and go to check out only to find shipping charges have more than doubled the price of the tea. This is an all too common occurrence. Often when buying online you end up paying way too much when you order in small quantities, or buying way too much trying to offset the shipping costs.
I admit to having bought more than a couple of $5 boxes online and paid outrageous shipping costs that took my per cup price up into the neighborhood of 45 to 50 cents. Crazy and not definitely not economical but when a favorite blend becomes unavailable any other way, sometimes one will go to extreme measures to get it. Of course it is wise to also begin looking for options or a new affordable favorite!
There are a few simple ways to work around the shipping costs. Some companies have sign up deals on their web site that offer free shipping a few times a year. With most companies, if your order exceeds a certain minimum amount, shipping is free. My personal favorite brand of bag tea is Ahmad. I buy it online through Amazon where I get two cases, each containing 6 boxes of 20 bags, for around $27 with free shipping. That’s $2.25 a box / $0.11 cents a cup. This is for a tea I consider to be superior to what I purchase locally and yet the price per cup is very reasonable. I have to order 240 tea bags to get the free shipping but I drink several cups a day. Considering how long it might take you to use 240 tea bags, even at $4-5 a box, the locally purchased tea may be the more practical route for you if your usage is low. Do remember, most prepackaged tea will stay fresh for two to three years.
Now before moving on to loose leaf we need to learn a little more math for comparison’s sake. I will use my Ahmad bag tea for this example. A box of tea costs $2.25. It contains 1.4oz (40g). How do we compare that to loose leaf? We need a per ounce price. To figure the per ounce price divide the cost by the total ounces. $2.25/1.4oz = $1.61 per ounce. Using my Stash figures from earlier $4/0.89oz = $4.49 per ounce! That is about 2.79 times more than the Ahmad tea. Isn’t math fun?
The numbers get more interesting, and surprising, when you start comparing bag tea to loose leaf. Have you always thought loose leaf was more expensive to use? Well it is not. Comparing the same brand and blend of tea in loose leaf and bag form will generally show loose leaf to be the clear winner in price per cup. It seems more expensive because you are buying more of it even though the tea bag box looks bigger.
For example: If a 1.4oz. box of 20 bags is $3.88 and a 4oz tin of loose leaf in the same brand is $6.50, which us the better deal? The loose leaf may sound more expensive when actually it is $0.08 cents a cup cheaper. The bag tea would cost $0.19/cup while the loose leaf is $0.11/cup. If you followed this example, congratulations! You have moved to the head of the class. If you are lost it is because you have yet to embrace math as your friend.
Let’s look at how we made the comparison:
[total cost / total oz = cost per ounce]: Bag Tea @ $3.88/1.4oz = $2.77 per ounce compared to loose tea @ $6.50/4oz = $1.63. It should be clear the loose leaf tea is much cheaper per ounce in this example.
We can further break this down to a per cup price. Assume a 0.07oz (2g) serving size as the box contains 20 bags (1.4oz/20 = 0.07oz/bag). So [total ounces / serving size = number of servings]: 4oz/0.07oz = 57 servings. To figure per cup price use [total cost / servings = cost per serving]. For bag tea that is $3.88/20 = $0.19, and for loose leaf $6.50/57 = $0.11 per cup.
Just like with bag tea, you can do even better price wise if you buy in larger amounts. Using Ahmad Earl Grey Green Tea as example, as it is my favorite. As mentioned previously I pay $2.25 for a 1.4 ounce box. That figures to $0.11/cup. Or I can buy a one pound box (16oz) of loose leaf for about $16 including shipping (shipping is around $9!). That is only $0.07 a cup. If I could buy it locally, and not have to pay shipping, it would cost only about $0.03/cup! That’s quite a bargain when you consider what a mediocre cup of tea will cost you in a restaurant.
Now let’s turn our attention away from mass produced pre-packaged teas to companies that specialize in loose leaf blends. The leaders seem to be Adagio, The English Tea Store, and Golden Moon Tea which all have their own blends made with the finest whole leaf teas available. These loose-leaf blends can appear to cost much more than the boxed tea you get locally until you do the math. Some of these companies list a per serving price on their web page but generally they need to be adjusted to include shipping charges. Even where the per serving price isn’t shown, you now have the skills to figure this yourself. [total ounces / 0.07oz = number of servings] then [total cost / number of servings] When you do the math you will discover many of the premium teas are very affordable.
Even knowing these teas are affordable it is a little hard to make oneself take the chance on ordering when we are not certain we will like the blend. Most of these companies recognize this is a real concern. Generally they offer a sample size of their blends that is reasonably priced and gives you the opportunity to try a few cups before committing to a more expensive purchase. Still there is that pesky shipping charge, so consider ordering a variety of samples that interest you.
Something else to consider here is multiple infusions. Though this is not guaranteed, it has been my experience that I can get more than one cup of tea out of a single serving of loose leaf by reusing the leaves for a second (or third on rare occasions) cup of tea. The price per cup gets cut in half if you can get two cups from one serving portion of leaves. I almost never get multiple infusions out of tea bags because I use a 12 ounce cup and like it strong. Yet I routinely can get two cups out of premium loose leaf tea. I do not know why this is true but it is.
I had the pleasure of trying Golden Moon Teas Coconut Pouchong. It was incredibly good. The however is it costs $18 for 2 ounces. Wow! Even without factoring in shipping that is about $0.64 a cup. That is a bit pricey, unless you compare it to anything you last bought at Starbucks. However, if you consider multiple infusions that cuts the price at least in half. My experience was with a sample size serving that cost $0.99. I got 9 cups of tea out of it. That may not be your experience and I am certainly not claiming it to be typical but my per cup cost was $0.11. Pretty amazing tea at an incredible price.
The advantage of loose leaf is that it contains full leaves or at least large pieces. Bag tea usually contains small pieces or fannings (dust). The larger the pieces the less the leaf has been damaged in processing. When you tear a leaf it releases moisture and oils that contain the flavor of the tea. Therefore properly prepared loose leaf should produce a richer more complicated brew.
When you move up to the premium teas made of large full leaves there really is a difference in the complexity of the taste when compared to the faithful grocery store tea. Try out one of these teas sometime and see if you can’t tell the difference. A good quality mass produced tea will easily take you 90% of the way. It is that extra 10% that keeps the loose leaf artist motivated to eek out that last bit of flavorful goodness. Considering the cost per cup is not that different it makes a lot of sense to join them in the search for the ultimate sip.
So why am I still drinking mostly bag tea? I won’t sugar coat it for you. Convenience, plain and simple. I do the vast majority of my tea consumption at work. Loose leaf is a bit more labor and time intensive. I prefer to seek out the best possible bagged teas with their no fuss preparation and limited clean up to loose leaf. Now if I owned the place or my boss shared my passion for tea it would be a different story. I hope you enjoyed Tea Economics 101. As a graduate let me introduce you to the real world. Stop reading, get off the Internet, and get back to work!
You might enjoy some of my tea related articles:
Home
Loose leaf or bags?
Tea Storage
Iced Tea
Hot Tea
Acid Reflux and Tea
Tea Economics 101
Tea Reviews
