Tea bags ? Evil ? Rubbish. Who can be arsed fannying around with pots and loose tea ? No-one I know, that’s for sure. Tea bag into a mug, pour on water, job done. Plus you get a hotter cup of tea. Tea bags. Greatest. Invention. Ever. I tell you what is evil though - iced tea. Now that’s the devil’s work.
Hot cup of dust, more like. Teabags are filled with the floor sweepings of the tea makers factory. All the high grades of tea are much larger. Generally the bigger the grade, the more expensive as well. Tea looses most of its flavor due to surface area being exposed. Thereby larger grades of tea remain fresh much longer. Also tea needs to expand to fill the pot thoroughly, and a bag restrains it. The tea companies figured out sometime ago that what they otherwise would be throwing away, they could sell to naive consumers (just like cigarettes)._Who can be arsed fannying around with pots and loose tea ? No-one I know, that’s for sure_Well, me for one. Bob, presumably for two. I’m having a nice cup at the moment. Its strong enough to make my eyebrows stand on end. I used to drink bag tea when I first stared. I can never go back now. As for getting a hotter cup of tea, well, you can always stick it in the microwave for a minute and get it as hot as you like.
Its very simple. Use Yorkshire tea, made with boiling water. Put some milk in it and sugar if so desired. What is evil is putting lemon into milkless tea which is then served tepid. There may be a name for that and I daresay people should be allowed to drink it if they so wish, but it is not tea. Having it as hot as you like is a redundant concept - you can only make it with boiling water.
He means it cools down as it steeps. It then cools down further if you don’t drink it all right away. A trip to the microwave gets it piping hot again. 
snuffster: I like tea with lemon, don’t drink it too much but occasionally I like it. I don’t know what’s the problem in serving hot tea with lemon. I’d rather say the tea is tepid when you put cold milk in it. I often get strange looks from British people when I ask them if they want some lemon in their tea. For me tea with milk is something strange, not saying evil, it just seems strange for me. Well, just a drinking habits difference.
Harrumph. Have a look at my challenge on the snuff in literture thread by the way!
Of course, evil being a joke.
Oh I know it was a joke 
And yes, I’ve looked on the literature topic a moment ago, I already googled the quote, but as you probably know nothing showed up. I’ll get back to it maybe later, I’m having 2 exams this week and I know nothing, so I think I should learn at least a little before taking your challenge.
The only reason its on there and why Im confident is that by pure fluke its just been a book lying around in my house for years and the thread came up, but I’ve got to say that that IS an evil chellenge!! Good luck with those exams mate.
I don’t really see much difference between loose leaf and bagged tea. Leaves are slightly moister than bags, thus taste is fuller. This depends on make of tea naturally and I’m talking about Barry’s now: Barrystea.ie. Cheapo tea bags are crap.
@Xander: “Hot cup of dust, more like. Teabags are filled with the floor sweepings of the tea makers factory. All the high grades of tea are much larger”. Cheap teabags may be filled with dust, but tea has to be in smaller leaves to brew properly in a teabag. Buy a decent brand and as AllanH says, there’s little difference in the taste from loose tea. “The tea companies figured out sometime ago that what they otherwise would be throwing away, they could sell to naive consumers (just like cigarettes).” The tea companies also figured out some time ago that the vast majority of people prefer teabags. They fill good teabags with high grade tea to remain competitive.
I go quite regularly to a tearoom in Bakewell (where the cakes come from), and they use loose tea. Very nice it is too but there is hardly any difference between that and PG Tips teabags. Teabags are far more convienient and don’t make as much mess as loose. I agree with Brad teabags = best invention ever. Stefan
@ Brad: As stated, even if you stuffed high grade tea into a bag, the bag itself would prevent the tea from expanding and coming in contact with as much water as possible during the infusion process. For the same reason, tea balls and any infuser gadgets are also to be avoided. Some teapots come with these contraptions. Its better just to let the leaves have the whole pot, then the tea can be poured through a strainer after the steeping process is complete. Teabags were invented to send samples through the mail. Some customer took it upon themself to stick the little packet in the cup or pot themselves. Word got back to the manufacturer and the commerical teabag was born. The lowest grade of tea is dust. I’ve seen nothing better from Tetley. The next grade up is fannings. Fannings are also usually sold in bags, but are considerably larger than dust. The only ones I’ve seen from either Yorkshire and Barrys are at this level. Next is Broken Orange Pekoe, or BOP. Orange has nothing to do with color or flavor. No one knows really what it means, but all tea grades there up use it. Be prepared to pay considerably more for this, but at least at this level you are actually paying for tea and not water coloring. Sometimes these can be sold in bags, but its pretty rare in my experience. A few companies will do kind of a superbag or a sachet with this. Above that is Full leaf or simply OP. Beyond that it gets a little confusing but look HERE for an expanation of the grading. Some of the best grades of the best teas can fetch $70-$80 per ounce. I’ve neer had anything that expensive personally. Most tea companies today buy what they specialize in. Tetley or Lipton pretty much just buy the dust from all the tea factories, becasue their business is teabags, not loose leaf. Twinings buys a bit of both. Fortnam & Mason pretty much buy high end, but all are buying from the same sources. Look for much smaller companies that source to individual growers for the best quality teas. In conclusion, I must disagree. There is an ENORMOUS difference between “good” brand of bag tea and loose tea, even cheap loose tea. As a snuff conoussuierr, I think you could appreciate that. Speaking of snuff, this thread probably should be relocated into the OT section. This is a snuff site, after all.
Loose tea doesn’t really have to be any more work than bags at all. Just pour them into a pot and pour water on top and you’re done. Something fibrous stuffed into the spout of the pot will prevent leaves in your cup. Here we use palm leaf fibre, but anything with that texture will do, and one simply rinses it with water. You can just as easily put loose tea in a mug and pour water over that as well.
Looses is definatly easy as hell. You can use a press even that works great. I have to say bag tea even the ones that are the best I’ve had. You know the ones that have actual leaf in them, well frankly they always taste somewhat flat. The other thing is there isn’t nearly the amount of variety which bagged tea never seems to come close too. I’ve tried some of the more expensive teas and oh my god they are too good for everyday but well worth the price as they are an experience. One of my favorites is golden yunnan which try finding that in a bag. 
When I quit drinking alcohol I found tea to be a good substitute to appreciate for an evening beverage. I am particularly fond of spiced chai teas. Ken
@Xander: “As stated, even if you stuffed high grade tea into a bag, the bag itself would prevent the tea from expanding and coming in contact with as much water as possible during the infusion process”. And as I’ve stated, that’s why teabags have smaller leaf tea in them. This has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with taste. If there really was a marked variance in the price of smaller leaf tea, why are teabags more expensive than loose tea ? The manufacturing process must have a fairly negligible cost. To quote the website for my favourite brand (Ringtons): “the invention of the teabag in the 1950s made small leaf teas very desirable, and led eventually to the development of machines specifically designed to make them, by crushing the leaves rather than rolling. Some teas produced in this way have exceptional strength and flavour”. “Its better just to let the leaves have the whole pot, then the tea can be poured through a strainer after the steeping process is complete”. No, it’s better just to use teabags because it’s much, much more convenient. No pot to heat, no strainer to clean, no messy leaves to be disposed of, no pot to clean, no tepid tea (use a microwave ? please !) and no stewed tea because you can remove the teabag at the moment the tea is brewed perfectly. “There is an ENORMOUS difference between “good” brand of bag tea and loose tea, even cheap loose tea”. No there isn’t. It’s nonsense to claim that a decent teabag gives a worse cup of tea than cheap loose tea. And a company’s blend (PG Tips say) doesn’t taste markedly different whether it’s loose or in bags. @matero: “You can just as easily put loose tea in a mug and pour water over that as well”. Now that’s just plain silly !
Oddly enough my parents have made tea that way as long as I can remember, truly awful. Good tea bags rule.
Tea: Lipton Tea, both standard teabag type and their various "pyramid teabag type/flavors. I run a pot of water through the coffee maker with nothing in (no filter or coffee) for the water as an easy way to have water a near enough temperature to pour over the teabags and into the cup (instead of attempting to microwave or trying to bother with the stove). Coffee: Folger’s Columbian Dark and whatevr they use at Sweetwater’s Donut Mill (when they have new kids working there it can get almost like espresso the way tjey make it, but its pretty hard for even them to screw up a good cup of coffee out there)
I like Numi’s spiced assam (despite the really corny texts in the packages) and the lapsang souchong from Stash, which is also surprisingly cheap in loose form. I’m a cheap coffee type of guy. I like all of the powdery Mexican ones you can find around here and Dunkin’ Donuts whenever I hit the East Coast.