Tea Bag Brands - Best / Top in US

If you are looking for an exhaustive list of tea companies, check out RateTea's list of brands of tea. This list is updated continuously, as new companies are listed on that site.

Tea culture is diverse, and there are many different largely non-overlapping traditions of tea, associated with different countries, production methods, and styles of tea preparation.

The main divides are between English and British tea culture, and the closely related European cultures, which favor strong black teas and blends like Earl Grey, and the Asian cultures which tend to focus more on green teas. Asian tea culture is further divided into Japanese green teas vs. Chinese green teas and other Chinese teas like oolong and Pu-erh.  Pu-erh is really a culture of its own, appreciated mostly by a small group of connoisseurs. Different tea companies focus on teas from different countries and cultures.

There are also numerous companies that specialize in herbal teas: some of these brands specialize in medicinal teas, whereas others focus on herbal teas more as beverages. Also common are blends of tea with herbs and other flavorings, common among mainstream brands like Tazo and Bigelow.  Even among brands that focus on flavored teas, there are certain flavor aesthetics that each company favors or leans towards.  Learning these can help you buy what you most enjoy drinking.

If you want to buy Japanese tea, buy from a Japanese company or one with Japanese roots or expertise, not one that focuses on English teas, and vice versa if you want a British-style tea. Think of what teas you enjoy the most, and buy from a brand with a focus on those styles of tea.

There are so many tea companies out there that this section cannot do them justice: this selection shows four of the brands you are most likely to see in a typical supermarket in the U.S.

• Twinings - Focuses on British-style teas, such as Earl Grey, English and Irish Breakfast, Ceylon, etc. Also offers a few herbals, such as chamomile (which they spell Camomile).
• Celestial Seasonings - Best known for their herbal teas, Celestial Seasonings also sells a few green teas and blends, and a few wellness teas or medicinal teas.
• Bigelow Tea - This company specializes in flavored teas and blends; it also sells a few pure teas and herbal teas.
• Stash Tea - Stash started out selling loose-leaf tea, but expanded into the mainstream tea bag market and made it huge. This company has a large selection and is hard to generalize about, but it is most known for its flavored teas and blends.

If you only buy tea at a standard supermarket, you will often be quite limited in terms of the brands available to you. But if you seek out Asian groceries or Asian supermarkets, you will find some brands which offer better options, especially for Chinese and Japanese teas. Some of my favorite brands that are common in these stores include:

• Foojoy - Foojoy sells extremely inexpensive Chinese teas. They are low-end, but surprisingly high quality for their bargain price.
• Yamamotoyama - Yamamotoyama is a Japanese tea company (which incidentally owns Stash tea); they are reasonably priced and offer Japanese teas of good quality.  I am especially a fan of their hojicha (roasted green tea) and gemaicha (brown rice tea).
• Ten Ren - My favorite company selling tea in basic tea bags, Ten Ren specializes in Taiwanese teas but also sells teas from mainland China. Two of their offerings, Ten Wu and Tung Ting, both greener oolongs, are among the best teas I've ever tasted in teabag form, and are quite reasonably priced.

Although I made this lens primarily for people looking for info about tea bags, and while I from time to time enjoy tea in this form, I'm mainly a loose tea drinker.

The main three reasons I prefer buying and drinking loose-leaf tea are price, quality, and sustainability.  Paying less for packaging means you are getting higher-quality tea for your money, and contributing less to waste.