Free The Leaves !

I throw the gauntlet.

Pyramid bags with loose leaf/whole leaf inside.

WHAT SAY YOU.

Show me a genuine ’pyramid’bag
A pyramid has a square base.
I’ve only ever seen tetrahedon bags falsely stating that they are pyramid-shaped.
If they can’t even tell the truth abouth the shape of the bag, what does that say about the veracity of their tea related information?
Not credible at all!

This thread got really petty and stupid.

Here’s the deal:
Loose leaf tea is, in the senses of quality, flavor and experience, better than bagged.
Bagged tea is WAY more convenient (and cheaper) than loose tea.
Some people like one, some like the other, some like both, some don’t care.
The end.

P.S. This is the internet. Get over yourselves. No one cares about the size of your epeen.

I had hoped we could keep this funny and lighthearted, but…
Incidentally, I’ve been trying to get my hands on the doco that exposes the fair trade tea scam. Has anyone seen it?
Oh and good on PeteG for being in Haiti to help. As usual, a few good people on the ground help a lot more than any amount of governembtal rhetoric.

I 80% agree with you. The other 20% of me would like to say, the best teabags could be better than mediocre loose leaf tea. So far I’ve had a few (and only a few) good teabags. One is the whole food 360 organic black teabag, one is a Da Hong Pao teabag directly from a Wuyi farmer (made from crumbs when the packaging the whole leaves), and one Kenya CTC mamri black tea. They are not heavenly good, but pretty good.

Pithy: From what I gather your participation on this site has been one of criticism and negative, verbose language. Most participants on Steepster have shared their love of tea thru filling their cupboards, creating eloquent tasting notes, offering positive or highly thought out critiques of tea companies, flavours, tea paraphenalia etc,. This community is very thoughtful and caring i.e, Travelling Tea Box. “The charming, quirky subset” that are our neighbours have been so helpful in my journey thru tea but this has been the first time that an individual such as you moved me to respond in such a fashion. I too care about and note harvest times, purchase tea from local farmers in Yunnan. I source out tea suppliers, seek advice from reputable, qualified tea tasters, etc, etc,.
“Great trouble comes from not knowing what is enough. Great conflict arises from wanting too much. When we know when enough is enough, there will always be enough.” Tao Te ching
Enough negativism…

I thought I was pretty damn snobby about my tea before I started using Steepster. Then I signed up and have been exposed to a number of individuals who have showed me that when it comes to snobbery I certainly have nothing to worry about.

Maybe it’s something we just have to get used to, but this loose vs bagged thing, which I’m not even going to call ‘a discussion’ at this point, seems to come up regularly. And it’s always by people who look down on those using bags. Funny how it’s never the other way around. Funny how it’s never started by people saying “bags! Look how easy this is! Look how cheap this is! If it wasn’t for the bag, I would have never started to drink tea!” because believe it or not, those people exist. I could name some, actually.

This whole entire thread and others of the same kind is, in my opinion, more than borderline Rule 5:

5) Respect the tastes of your fellow Steepster members. Every one has their own way of preparing and enjoying tea and that’s what makes this place interesting. Share your opinion, but don’t force it on others.

(Emphasis mine. )
And don’t give me any BS about differences in production conditions for loose and bagged tea, because you know what? Tea, both bagged and loose, is produced in some of the world’s poorest countries and by some of the world’s poorest people. For the teapicker in the field and the worker in the tea factory it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether you, the consumer, go for the cheaper bag or the more expensive loose. They’re still as desperately poor as they were the day before.

So could we just drop it? PLEASE!

Teabags exist. People buy them. Deal with it. If YOU don’t want to buy teabags, then don’t buy them. If you don’t want to read posts from people who buy them and like them, don’t follow those people. It’s not rocket science, people.

Let’s all remember why we love steepster.com. we are united by a love of tea. Enjoy this article b about Alexander McCall Smith and tea http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/31/tea-drink-alexander-mccall-smith
It has some great perspective

I would just like to say, that it’s just tea…it all has an equal opportunity to be pooped on by insects and animals…

What’s this? A flame-war about tea bags?

*giggles * XD