Super - that is just what I was talking about. I used to order them quite often for my dried herbs, but lost the address. Made a note of it this time.

I read somewhere that camelia leaves are used in making tea - by drying them, but not sure if it has to be a special cultivar. Have 2 prolific bushes in my yard - which are all abloom now - beautiful.

Thanks again.

Bejay

Tea is made of a particular type of camellia, Camellia sinensis.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tea Wiki Article

I bought fill-your-own teabags at the Richter's Herbs store North of Toronto, but I can't find them in their online catalogue, alas. The packaging suggested they were made in Germany. They were larger than standard black tea bags, since intended for herb teas (which often need more "stuff" to get a flavourful infusion than black ones). They didn't seal, but were designed so you could kind of fold a top flap in like an envelope. They had no strings. I used to put a single staple in them, adding a string and closing the top more securely.

Z

I just brew loose tea in a pot. I grew up with many Asian friends, and so drank a lot of loose leaf tea, so I got used to it.

I do buy Celestial Seasonings in bags, as I like to make bottles of iced herb tea for on the go times, and can make several different flavors quickly and easily without messing about straining etc.

I save my plastic water or drink bottles, push one teabag in and fill it with hot tap water, seal and stuff it in the fridge. By the next day, I have cold, ready to drink herb tea in bottles to grab instead of soda.

There's a coffeehouse in Charlottesville that puts loose leaf tea in bags that are sealed on three sides and have large rectangular tabs on the open side. They close this part between the cup and the lid so it's easily reached when you're ready to remove the bag. Of course due to capillary action it's wet anyway, but not too hot since it's up out of the water. I don't think this method lets the tea swirl around as much during steeping, but the bags were pretty big so it seemed to work ok.

I've been making iced tea in quart jars with boiling water and a Luzianne quart-sized tea bag. I steep it for 4 minutes and then remove the tea bag and add 1/3 cup sugar. Within a few hours it's ready to keep me awake. At work I make hot tea from Barry's gold blend. Barry's is like the Irish equivalent of Lipton, but it has a very strong brisk taste. One small teacup of that can be enough to make me jittery in a way that coffee rarely does. My aging grandmother said she had noticed that she was able to taste tea again, but it turned out her health aide had brought in some Irish tea.

Melissa

racehlellen,

Purists from England (or Victoria, British Columbia, which is almost the same thing from an afternoon tea point of view ;-p ) will tell you that loose tea tastes MUCH better. Teabag tea tastes perfectly good to me --- I find that the imporant thing, flavourwise, for my own taste, is to pour truly boiling water over the tea (HATE restaurants that bring me a little pot of hot water and a bag to dip into it).

Melissa, those Charlottesville sound like the teabags I got from Richters.

I brew my own herb tea usually using a tea ball or one of those little ceramic inserts. But the fill-your-own teabags full of my own dried herbs were a huge hit as gift items. (In fact, recipients seem to be more impressed with the bags than the herbs inside them, sigh. ;-) )

Z

Ohhhh Zabby...hate Hate HATE those little pots of slightly above tepid water in restaurants. By the time the waitress fills them (from a machine that doesn't produce boiling water to start with), sets it on the tray, collects the teabag and (cold) cup and saucer and carries it out to the table, there isn't any point. Years ago, as a waitress, I earned many pleased compliments (and probably tip increases) by bringing a thermal carafe to the table and ceremoniously filling the metal teapot to heat it, and then pouring that water into the cup to heat it while I refilled the metal pot with fresh hot water (over the teabag). Then, dumping the now cooling water from the cup so they had a warm cup to drink it from completed the process. The carafe was employed for refills as well. It wasn't perfect, but a whole lot better.

Later, the restaurant switched to individual press pots and a good quality loose leaf tea that we prepared in the kitchen, but I still brought the cup full of hot water to pour out at the table, leaving the customer with a warm cup.

rachelellen, I myself would have doubled your tip on the spot for that! ;-)

Some years back, I got a car-trailer-load of end-of-roll teabag paper from a local tea packaging firm. The rolls are the same size as rolls of paper towelling, with about 20-30 metres or more of teabag paper left on each roll.

So I've made thousands of my own teabags. I cut the paper into strips the width of a teabag, then into double-width rectangles. All that remains is to fold over the length, iron 2 sides to seal the edges, fill the bag, iron the top, and voila! Biggest challenge is folding the paper the right way - the glue is only on one side.

I've used the stuff as paper towelling - not as good, but it works. I only have about a dozen rolls left, and have given away dozens of them.

Best part - it was all FREE. The waste was going off to the recyclers.