Back in 2015 the Guardian reported that PG Tips had reduced the amount of tea in its pyramid bags but hadn’t done the same in regards to price – the cost per box remained the same with Unilever justifying the decision by stating that a ‘new blend’ would ensure taste would be unaffected.

It was revealed that the nations favourite brand of tea had sneakily reduced the tea in each pyramid by 0.2g – from 3.1g to 2.9g – hardly storm in a teacup tackle at the time, however six years have passed and I’m sorry to say that it would appear that once again we are being rinsed by a pair of chimpanzees…

According to the UK Tea and Infusions Association (yes, there is such a thing), tea is by far the most popular drink consumed in Britain today, with over 100,000,000 cups being drunk in the UK every single day of the year – my personal contribution being 10,000.

So maybe 10,000 is a slight exaggeration, but I do drink a lot of tea – probably far too much considering that, rather than ditching the drink when my daily caffeine intake became so high that my eye began to twitch (don’t ask), I switched to decaf – with PG Tips being my refreshment of choice.

Good times, bad times, early morning, last thing at night and even when it’s 27 degrees in the shade, tea is pretty much the one beverage I consistently drink – in fact I was practically weaned on the stuff and have probably brewed around a million cuppas since first being able to reach the kettle.

After recently making two brews in succession that both looked and tasted like milky dishwater (despite using my tried n tested technique) I decided to have a look at the teabags left in the box we were using and was shocked at what I found…

Pulling out a handful it was immediately obvious that some bags had far less tea leaves than others and a couple of them were actually empty with no tear or rip and no loose tea in the bottom – indicating there was never any tea in the bags to start with.

This is when I came across the Guardian article mentioned at the top of the page and decided to conduct my own, small scale investigation – Using jewellers scales and ensuring all bags were in the correct pyramid shape, I weighed 30 teabags chosen at random from the box – the results are below but there’s a couple of important points first…

1. Out of the sample 30 teabags, six were under 2.9g and four were completely empty. There is no debris in the bottom of the box, nor are the empty bags broken in any way.
2. In the interest of fairness I should state that the majority of sample teabags weighed more than 2.9g – however that doesn’t help with the perfect cuppa when the one you’re using doesn’t have enough tea to fill a thimble.
3. 10 bags constitutes one third of the whole sample – thats a one-in-three chance of getting a rubbish brew.

All 40 Sample Weights Below – I have photographs for each and have only shared a couple of the more interesting ones. if you would like to see all the pics please feel free to comment / drop me a message.

I am in the process of trying to reach the appropriate monkey at PG Tips for a comment and will update if / when they respond.

Teabag Sample Results

“A Cuppa, a brew or a lovely rosey lee – there really is nothing quite like a cup of tea”