The Easy Way To Save Your Cup Of Tea If Your Tea Bag Breaks

A busted tea bag turns what should be pleasant sipping into a bummer. It's impossible to avoid all those tiny pieces of leaves, and according to Jee Choe, coffee and tea sommelier and creator of the Oh, How Civilized blog, straining is really the only way forward. It's not hard to do, but it definitely cancels out the convenience of using sachets for your morning tea. However, taking this extra step is way better than pouring perfectly good tea down the drain.

"If the tea bag bursts, the best way to salvage it is to get a mesh strainer or filter and pour the contents of the cup with tea into another cup," Choe told The Takeout. "Basically, it would be preparing the tea like you would with loose tea."

Maybe you purchased tea bags because you're not already outfitted with the tools to make loose leaf tea. In that case, a mesh strainer may not be in the cards. Take a moment and poke around your kitchen; chances are you have something that will work. "Another option is using a coffee filter, but that may be messier and take longer than you would like," Choe shared. While paper filters can be cumbersome, other types of coffee filters might work better. Try using the metal basket from a drip coffee maker, the perforated chamber where the coffee grounds go in a moka pot, or steep and strain using a French press. Cheesecloth, a mesh storage or produce bag, a sieve, or even a clean tea towel can all potentially save the day.

While straining out leaves from a cup of tea doesn't require a whole lot of effort, it's still better to avoid the problem in the first place. First, how you introduce the water when making tea is key. Rather than pouring hot water over the tea bag like you might usually, Choe recommended the opposite. "Put hot water into the cup first, then gently add the tea bag to prevent the tea bag from bursting," she said. When you stir, do so gently.

Choe left us with another piece of advice. "Don't wring out the tea bag after the steep," she cautioned, since it can inadvertently cause the bag to tear. There may even be an additional benefit: Some tea drinkers say that squeezing the bag imparts too strong or bitter of a taste into the brew, though this ultimately depends on individual preference.