When I started Teabox a few years ago, I was convinced that the best tea can only be made with loose leaf, and never a tea bag. And this was not far from the truth because in the time it takes to fill, produce and ship the average tea bag, the quality of the tea has already deteriorated. The structure of the tea bag makes it vulnerable to this damage; the tea is continuously exposed to air and therefore affected by moisture and oxygen. Which means that by the time a consumer receives their tea bags, it might not make a good cup at all.
From Day 1, the core focus of Teabox has been on ensuring freshness and the highest quality, which has been enabled through vacuum packing of our teas. But over the last few years, as we’ve continued to grow, it became increasingly evident that many people would choose loose-leaf tea if it didn’t feel like a chore to make it. As it turns out, there are many tea drinkers who find the process of steeping tea intimidating, and would reach for a tea bag. Because at the end of the day, you want to simply enjoy a cup of tea.
But how do we combine the freshness of our loose-leaf tea with the convenience of the tea bag? Potato chips! That was the A-ha! moment. Potato chip manufacturers use something called a natural Nitrogen flush packaging. Nitrogen’s a natural inert gas and doesn’t react with or impact the food product. But it does one thing: it preserves freshness by displacing all other gases.
Over the last six months, our R&D team worked on using natural Nitrogen to pack in freshness and create little single serve packets of loose-leaf tea. It took a series of trials and experiments, many late nights, and navigating through several dead ends before we cracked the process. And for the first time in the history of tea, we have managed to pack in the freshest teas in a convenient tea bag form with absolutely no compromise on the quality. It is perhaps, the best thing that’s happened to the industry in the last 50 years.
Today, I take great pride in presenting to you the world’s first natural Nitrogen flush tea bag – we call it the TeaPac®. I don’t think you will ever see the tea bag in the same old way ever again.
