A nation of tea-drinkers

For years, the United Kingdom has been known as a nation of tea-drinkers.  Selling tea and tea-bags is a big business, estimated at half a billion pounds per year.  Until the invention of teabags, tea was made with leaves in a pot.  Teapots were to be found in every household, in all shapes and sizes, and associated with the serving of tea came tea-caddies, tea strainers, tea-cups and so on.  Tea-bags changed some of these habits.  With a tea-bag, a cup of tea can be mad by pouring boiling water onto the bag in a cup or mug, so dispensing with the need for a teapot.  For the company making tea, tea-bags mean that finer leaves can be used.  In our household, we use both leaf tea and tea-bags, but almost always use one of our teapots.  (We have four teapots: one holds enough for two cups, the next holds enough for four or five, the third is slightly larger, and my heirloom Victorian one holds ten or so cups.)

Today several newspapers have reported a story about measurement of tea made with tea-bags, to settle a dispute about "What is better?"  And of course, OR is all about "What is better?"  The story can be read here.  It all followed from an advertisement which included this picture:

(c) Daily Mail

The tea on the left is made with a pyramid-shaped tea-bag, that on the right with a round bag.  The claim is that pyramids are better.  A leading manufacturer of round tea-bags claimed that this was a misleading claim in an advert, so there have been laboratory tests whose results are supporting the claims for the pyramids.  Ultimately, it will be up to the consumer, who will apply an OR technique, cost-benefit analysis.  Is it worth buying more expensive tea-bags or not?  But it is nice to see that in the nation of tea-drinkers, people are prepared to study whether one "cuppa" is better than another.