PG Tips Loose Leaf Quality Issue

Oxidized tea
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pedant
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:04 am

welcome to the forum!
atticusedwards wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 8:59 pm
Is it supposed to be like that, and if it is, what's that about? What happened to proper loose tea?
not sure. i've never had pg's loose leaf.
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:25 am

atticusedwards wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 8:59 pm
After being off the stuff for years, The Lady Wife announced last week that she fancied a cup of "proper" tea again, so I dutifully returned home from the shops with a box of PG Tips Loose Tea. Which to our surprise is sort of crumbs, or granules, as opposed to tea leaves.

Is it supposed to be like that, and if it is, what's that about? What happened to proper loose tea?
That is exactly as it is supposed to be: CTC, crush, tear, curl - the method perfected by the British overlords of her Majesty's empire to subdue the global tea market :lol: See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_tear,_curl

It's economic, it makes a lot of money with minimal cost and a perfectly awful cuppa for the unsuspecting consumer. Long live the Queen!

Literally undrinkable without milk and sugar.
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:28 am

Note: Homogenic as mentioned in the link above means - put down to the lowest common denominator...
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:45 am

atticusedwards wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 8:59 pm
Is it supposed to be like that, and if it is, what's that about? What happened to proper loose tea?
Yes. That is how millions of P G Tips' customers expect it to be. That is "proper" to them, what they are used to preparing. I think (but don't know for sure) that most add milk and/or sugar.

With milk and/or sugar, a difference between other commercial teas, such as Tetley, & PG Tips might not be noticeable to many people; yet, it matters so much for people to have their brands.

I cynically wonder how much the sight of a P G Tips' teabag helps their drinkers enjoy the cup. I say this because I have seen so many hungover tourists & expats from the United Kingdom finding succor from their first cup, beginning at the sight the large P G at one end of the string & the uniquely fashioned teabag at the other end in the hot water of a cup.
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:02 am

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:45 am
I cynically wonder how much the sight of a P G Tips' teabag helps their drinkers enjoy the cup. I say this because I have seen so many hungover tourists & expats from the United Kingdom finding succor from their first cup, beginning at the sight the large P G at one end of the string & the uniquely fashioned teabag at the other end in the hot water of a cup.
I can imagine the scene vividly... and that although they could have the equally, if not more nasty, but at the same time devilishly delicious Lucky Hand Thai Milk tea!
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:18 am

Not a lot of British-style tea fans here, sadly. As has been pointed out, the "crush-tear-curl" shape is by design. While people may scoff, it is actually a useful shape for this particular style of tea. When it was popularized, Brits were drinking a lot of tea -- almost Tibetan level, "if you didn't insist on 2-leaves-and-a-bud you'd probably have fluorosis" amounts of tea. So its main drawback, the shorter shelf-life, is not so important, while it provides three very helpful attributes.

1. It is easier to clean a strainer of crush-tear-curl.
2. It is faster to measure tea this way, as you can scoop CTC.
3. You can squeeze an acceptable British-style cup out of a slightly shorter brew.

Basically, it is a tea that is perfectly designed for frequent-but-short tea breaks.

Broken orthodox roll has a longer shelf-life, but it's a bit more of a challenge to push a cup out in a hurry. Some people think this is an advantage, as it forced normally busy people to slow down for a bit, but with the pressures of modern life it's hard to justify for some people (or their employers, anyway), and with faster shipping the shelf-life is not quite such a concern for areas where there is a lot of heavy tea-drinking.

The main trouble if you are getting PG Tips somewhere where it is not drunk in large amounts is that then the shelf-life issue becomes an issue again. Pay careful attention to any "best by" dates, keeping in mind that usually the people who produce these dates are optimists.
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:31 am

mbanu wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:18 am
Not a lot of British-style tea fans here, sadly.
If the tea were better, there’d be more fans… as it is, the glory days of when a British cuppa tea was something decent have long gone I believe, if they ever
really where.

Even fresh from the box it’s no kind of tea consumed otherwise than an afterthought of what tea could be, no matter what nostalgia of fore gone glorious empire days may suggest…
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:32 am

The CTC process was designed to squeeze the maximum profit out of it and the colonies it was grown in, not for the maximum of what the leaf could offer.
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LeoFox
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Fri Jun 25, 2021 11:16 am

Could consider this for orthodox tea. Last season's and so at a nice discount. A bit older but vacuum sealed to preserve freshness and probably loads better than CTC unless you're making chai.

https://www.vahdamteas.com/products/dai ... 1855007787


This thread made me reach for some ceylon tea:
viewtopic.php?p=37352#p37352
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Baisao
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Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:49 pm

I’d like to make clear to the OP that I don’t believe anyone is attacking people who enjoy these bagged teas but attacking the quality of the tea itself.

PG Tips is pretty dreadful but it also has a cultural context to those who enjoy it.

This reminds me of the affection we Cajuns have for our local rice, despite it being low quality when compared to many Asian brands. While Royal basmati may be a great rice, it’s unthinkable that someone would make a jambalaya from it. My family would only use Douget's rice, despite it being poorly polished and having broken grains.
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Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:23 pm

Baisao wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:49 pm
PG Tips.... has a cultural context to those who enjoy it.

This reminds me of the affection we Cajuns have for our local rice, despite it being low quality when compared to many Asian brands. While Royal basmati may be a great rice, it’s unthinkable that someone would make a jambalaya from it. My family would only use Douget's rice, despite it being poorly polished and having broken grains.
So well expressed, Baiso. "Cultural context" is a phrase that explains much & your example suits the situation.

My sister & I ate some banana taffy last Sunday after not having it for decades. We loved it though it could easily pull gold inlays out of our teeth that took a lot of time & $ to get right: &, the artificial banana flavoring of the taffy could have been called a lot of other things originally since it is nothing like real bananas. If we ever come across a taffy made with real bananas, I would not be surprised if we would not like it. It would not remind us of childhood visits to a corner candy store.
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Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:32 pm

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:23 pm
Baisao wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:49 pm
PG Tips.... has a cultural context to those who enjoy it.

This reminds me of the affection we Cajuns have for our local rice, despite it being low quality when compared to many Asian brands. While Royal basmati may be a great rice, it’s unthinkable that someone would make a jambalaya from it. My family would only use Douget's rice, despite it being poorly polished and having broken grains.
So well expressed, Baiso. "Cultural context" is a phrase that explains much & your example suits the situation.

My sister & I ate some banana taffy last Sunday after not having it for decades. We loved it though it could easily pull gold inlays out of our teeth that took a lot of time & $ to get right: &, the artificial banana flavoring of the taffy could have been called a lot of other things originally since it is nothing like real bananas. If we ever come across a taffy made with real bananas, I would not be surprised if we would not like it. It would not remind us of childhood visits to a corner candy store.
As does your example. Thank you, Ethan.

Not to be too tangential, but the reason banana taffy tastes the way it does is because banana flavoring came before bananas (and now we are nostalgic for that flavor): https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/ ... l-bananas/

Enjoy!
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