How to make the perfect cuppa

Tea emerged in Britain as a luxury drink for the super-rich, but now the nation gets through 61 billion teabags a year – enough to cover almost 31,000 football pitches.

A poll of 2,000 tea drinkers found they each use an average of four teabags a day for their cuppas – a total of 1,460 each year.

Across the UK, this means almost 167 million teabags are binned or composted every day. 

It also emerged that a third of tea-drinkers turn to a brew when they want some comfort, while more than one in twenty put the kettle on to help them in a crisis. 

As a result, lockdown has seen 27 per cent drinking more tea since March 2020.

The survey, commissioned by JING Tea, revealed that despite being a nation of tea lovers we are quite traditional in our drinking with 36 per cent admitting they aren’t adventurous when it comes to the drink and one third having enjoyed their tea the same way all through life, with one in five simply drinking it the same way as their parents.

Aston spoke to Ed Eisler, tea expert and founder of JING Tea to tell us more about the nation’s tea drinking habits and how they have changed since the lockdowns.

Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash