As a strictly loose leaf tea vendor, we are offering our customers something that teab*g vendors never can: trust.
Taking aside all of the other reasons to not buy teab*gs – poor work practices on mega-plantations, lack of quality, a desire to not have staples, glue, paper or plastic in your tea – the very idea of them is one of distrust.
Teaba*g vendors are, in effect, saying:
- We do not trust you to measure out the correct amount of tea
- We do not trust you with tea making implements – a strainer is far too complicated for you
- We do not trust you to organise your life sufficiently that you have four minutes to make tea
By delivering a risk free, effort free, complication free – and usually taste-free – solution to a problem people never had, the teab*g has become an insidious and ubiquitous symbol of the dumbing down of Western society.
But hang on, why are we dumbing down? We have the internet! We can Google stuff! If we want to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangular frame to make a chicken shed roof, or work out how long to cook a turkey for, or how much the repayment is on a ten year loan, or learn the guitar solo to Bohemian Rhapsody, or calculate how much fuel you’ll need to burn down the extension your neighbour built that blocks your view across the valley, it’s all there.
It’s like a conspiracy where the conspirators and the conspired against are conspiring. “Yes, we are stupid. Please help us by giving us a product for we don’t need, to emphasise that:
- No, we are not capable of using a measuring spoon
- No we do not understand gravity
- No, we cannot find a couple of extra minutes in our day as we have the time management skills of a wounded racoon”
A few years ago, I described restaurants and cafes who used teab*gs: ” lazy, uncaring and have no interest in quality. Oh, and stupid as well.” I accused them of basically stealing their customers’ money. Comments I still stand by.
But customers have to take some of the blame.
Even me. In most places that have teab*gs, I have hot chocolate these days. I usually don’t want it, but it’s the easiest hot beverage to make palatable and if a cafe doesn’t trust their staff to make proper tea, I’m not going to trust them to make a cappuccino.
Think about that. If a barista is incapable or unwilling to spoon out tea, add hot water and press a timer, then how is that a suitable person to handle dangerous hot equipment, well roasted coffee beans and a steam wand?
So, the message is simple. Trust is a two-way street.
If a vendor has so little trust in you that they feel the need to encase their tea in a paper or bio-plastic* bag, why would you trust them to deliver great quality tea?
*That’s the stuff they make teab*gs that are often deceptively called “silky” or “silken” from.
Interesting thoughts but perhaps the man you despise as unable to make a good tea and therefore a good coffee has been trained in the later and not the former.
Bring back real tea made in a pot from leaf tea, and made with love like a meal, not some nefarious substitute tea bag, thrown together and plonked on your table , wham bam; you know the rest…nuff said.
That’s what we’ve been about for many years, Colin.