Tea Bag Shapes
Traditionally, tea bags have been square or rectangular in shape. More recently circular and pyramidal bags have come on the market and are often claimed by their manufacturers to improve the quality of the brew.
Empty tea bags are also available for consumers to fill with tea leaves themselves. These are typically open-ended pouches with long flaps. The pouch is filled with an appropriate quantity of leaf tea and the flap is closed into the pouch to retain the tea. Such tea bags combine the ease of use of a commercially-produced tea bag with the wider tea choice and better quality control of loose leaf tea.
Because of the convenience of tea bags, a wide variety of herbs can be purchased as "tea bag cut", a grade which is specified in terms of particle size, typically with the bulk of the leaves around 1 - 1.5 mm.
The nylon pyramidal tea bag containing larger tea leaf fragments made an appearance in the marketplace for aficionados. The pyramidal shape allows more room for the leaf to steep. Environmentalists prefer silk to nylon because of health and biodegradability issues. Another material for tea bags is Soilon, made from corn starch.
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