That’s cup of tea to the uninitiated. Also referred to as a brew, cup o’ cha, or simply cuppa.
Now unless you have been living on Mars this past week or so you will know that Greta Thunderbirds – or is it Thing-bug? Thongbird? Well whatever… She has been awarded the honour of being Time magazine person of the 2019.
Does she know about the teabags?
Will Greta go after the Great British cuppa? Does she not know that most teabags are made with plastic? More to the point how many of us mere mortals realise that most teabags contain plastic? Think about it. How else do they stay intact? If it was just made of some paper surely they would simply disintegrate under the pressure of boiling water.
I never knew…
To be more accurate I had never even thought about it. Then, by accident I found myself questioning the humble teabag. While watchng an ad for those ubiquitous coffee capsules I noticed a short message on screen. It said ‘NOT for use in garden compost’ – or something like that. So I wondered about tea bags. Then Dani’s nana mentioned that she had heard that teabags are not fully biodegradable. So naturally I looked it up and this is what I found…
Most do contain plastic. Including many of the top best-selling brands. Also the plastic is in such minute particles that it would surely be getting into the body every time we make a cup of tea. Doesn’t sound good des it? But fear not. The old dad has some top advice below…
Back to Greta…
This girl certainly divides opinion. Almost everyone I know cannot stand her lecturing and posturing. Her wires are probably being pulled by others so maybe it isn’t all her fault. Not that I am in awe of her. I am one of those who thinks she is being used and wish she would just shut up. She is what is known as a ‘useful idiot’ (see below).
The only people who seem to really like her are impressionable school kids and dopey politicians and celebs who think it gives them some kind of street cred. (Michael Gove an obvious example of such dopey politicians).
I think it would seriously damage her already overrated credibility if she attacked the Great British teabag. Tea making and drinking is like a ceremony in the UK. And in other countries too. So my advice to Greta would be; keep your mouth shut and your hands off our teabags.
What can you do?
There are of course 2 simple solutions.
- Make bags with no plastic. Some already do; Co-op 99 tea for example – in the UK. There are others examples too – search online for more.
- Everyone can go back in time when tea was made from loose leaf in a tea-pot.
Option 2 is easy and anybody can do it. Simply sieve the brewed tea through a tea strainer.
There. Simple.
Anyone fancy a cuppa?
Footnote:
In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders.
The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this is unsubstantiated.