Is it true that tea bags contain chemicals?

Some people absolutely refuse to drinktea bags, considering it to be very poor in terms of quality. There is even a joking opinion among the people that manufacturers pour "dust from Indian roads" inside the bags. Of course, inside each paper container there is real tea, just heavily crushed. But there are many concerns about the fact that dyes and flavors are added to the composition of tea bags to give taste and aroma. In general, for all the time of its existence, tea bags have gained a reputation as “solid chemistry”. Different groups of specialists have checked the composition of various brands of teas many times with the help of professional equipment and made very unexpected conclusions. So what's inside the bags besides tea leaves? Chemistry, or something worse?

Is it true that tea bags are as bad as they say?

Content

1 What is inside tea bags?
2 What kind of tea is in the bags?
3 How often teas are counterfeited?
4 Harm of tea bags
5 Unexpected Tea Bag Ingredient

What is inside tea bags?

For the exact composition of tea bags,In 2019, Roskachestvo studied the products of 35 companies. All samples, without exception, were examined for 178 indicators and, to the surprise of many, no serious violations were found. To dispel the myth of leftovers from whole leaves and other debris being added to the bags, the researchers tested the bags for ash, coarse fibers and caffeine. There was no ash, which indicates the absence of sand and other dirt. Coarse fibers were also not found, which means that there are no old leaves in the tea. But there was caffeine, which suggests that no one adds leaves of other plants to the bags except for tea.

It turns out that there is nothing particularly bad inside the tea bag.

It is important to note, that impurities were not found only insamples that were tested - perhaps there are manufacturers who are acting dishonestly. As a rule, such products are much cheaper, so they should be avoided.

Some people are sure that in tea bagsa lot of dyes, because when the bag is immersed in boiling water, the water immediately darkens. In fact, this is due to the fact that the leaves in the bag are finely chopped - so they give color to the water much faster. If you grind loose leaf tea, it will also quickly color the water.

One more clarification: in some tea bags indeedleaves of other plants are added. But they only complement the tea leaves to give the drink an extra taste. Usually, the addition of other plants is indicated on the packaging.

What kind of tea is in the bags?

The first stage in the production of any tea, leafor packaged, looks the same. First, moisture is removed from the tea leaves, rolled, dried and passed through a sieve. When passing through a sieve, tea is divided into large-leaf, medium-leaf and small. It is the small leaves that are added to the bags - the fine fraction is called "tea dust", but there is no dirt in it. Yes, there is a big difference between loose tea bags and loose tea. Firstly, tea bags, due to their smallness, are much stronger. But it is less fragrant, because volatile essential oils are less preserved in small leaves.

tea dust

There is a tea destroys the body more than cigarettes

How often are teas counterfeited?

According to Roskachestvo, raw materials for the manufacturetea for the mass market is very cheap. Manufacturers spend most of their money on beautiful packaging, advertising and transportation. Because of this, there is no particular point in making fakes of popular teas. However, if we are talking about any rare types of tea, the chances of running into a fake are much higher.

Fake teas are rare because they don't make much sense.

Do you know which tea is the most unhealthy? You can find the answer here.

The harm of tea bags

Based on everything written above, you can dothe conclusion is that tea bags are not more harmful than leaf tea (yes, it has harmful properties). However, tea bags are one point more harmful. In 2019, Canadian scientists tried dipping empty tea bags into 95-degree boiling water and looking at the water through a microscope. It turned out that tea bags release microplastics into the water with a size of 11.6 billion particles of microplastics about 100 nanometers in size. But microscopic plastic debris can cause inflammatory bowel disease, high cholesterol, and even changes in the shape of the lungs.

Microplastics are definitely harmful to health, but scientists do not know how much

Unexpected tea bag ingredient

And recently, German scientists decided to studycontents of tea bags at the DNA level. It turned out that each paper container contains the genetic data of hundreds of species of insects that have ever landed on tea leaves during their growth and processing. The fact is not particularly pleasant, but the DNA of insects cannot cause any harm to humans. If after that it is unpleasant to drink tea, you can switch to coffee - its grains are roasted, as a result of which all genetic data is destroyed. But with coffee you need to be careful and know when to stop.