Inventor of the silky teabag, take a bow. You have achieved something that until now no one would have thought possible. You have taken an item so simple, so perfect, so completely suited to its purpose that the idea of ruining it had occurred to literally no one — and you have ruined it. You have ruined the teabag.
I first encountered this abomination a couple of years ago. Shoreditch, inevitably, in one of those places with a blackboard proclaiming their Instagram handle and a witty quote. Ordering a tea, I was presented with a cup, a pot of hot water and a teabag. I put the bag into the water, noticing as I did so the silky texture of its material, more like plastic than paper. It felt nice, a pleasing sensation on the fingertips.
Only after I’d waited for a couple of minutes, then poured the first bit of tea, did the problem become clear. The liquid emerging from the pot wasn’t tea, it was water. A vaguely different colour of water, perhaps, but definitely nothing that could qualify as tea. So I pressed the bag with the spoon, whirled it round a bit, pressed again and poured some more. Still water. Possibly a couple of shades further along the Farrow and Ball colour chart, possibly heading towards ‘faint tan’, but taste-wise there was nothing.
So I gave it a bit longer, and pressed the bag and whirled the bag and pressed the bag. But the bag wasn’t having it. Finally, I realised that no matter how long you gave this thing, it wasn’t going to release the flavour of the leaves it contained. The material kept that flavour trapped inside. And this, I would argue, counts — in a teabag — as failure.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in