Choosing the right tea for the office pantry

Everyone has tea in their office pantries, often the three-in-one premixed powdered sachets, or plain teabags. While these are convenient to store and easy to use, with much variety available at the supermarket, Teabox, a startup that sells premium teas from India online, says that there can be a downside to powdered teas or those in teabags.

Source: Teabox website.

"Tea dust is the remnants after the production of tea. It is the lowest quality of tea, lacks all the rich flavours, tastes and aroma of the tea. This is what goes into tea bags," explains Kaushal Dugar, CEO of Teabox.

He added that such teas would have negligible nutrition quotient. Asked what teas he would recommend from Teabox, he suggested considering Teabox's Afternoon Collection or Lunchtime Collection. 

"These have moderate caffeine levels, just right to push through the slow afternoons. They also go well with food," he said. 

The Afternoon Collection consists of 22 tea samples, including 

Avongrove (Summer) Darjeeling Organic Black Tea, 2014 Gopaldhara Wonder (Spring) Darjeeling White Tea, and 2014 Upper Namring Exotic (Spring) Darjeeling Green Tea. The Lunchtime Collection consists of nine samples, including Darjeeling Special (Autumn) Blend Green Tea, 2014 Okayti Marvel Organic (Spring) Darjeeling Black Tea and 2014 Darjeeling Imperial Blend (Spring) Oolong Tea.

The way tea is stored can matter, too. Dugar shared that tea can lose its essential flavours and aroma if stored improperly. "Storage for teabags does not really matter, since the tea dust doesn't produce such a flavourful cup anyway. But loose leaf tea needs to be properly stored, since exposure to air is the biggest threat to freshness. The tea needs to be in an airtight container, in a dark, cool and dry place," Dugar said. 

Read the Teabox story here.