Teabag tech answers the call of the modern era

PA Consulting's Viju Vasishta, sustainable materials expert , discusses PA's roll out of a sustainable tea sheets prototype in an article by Vladislav Vorotnikov in Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. 

Commenting on this, Viju says: "The product is currently in the prototyping phase, though the company has already demonstrated the proof of principle in terms of performance compared to standard tea bags."

Adding: "Currently, some branded tea bags are packaged in foil wrap and other flexible plastic packaging, and the sector needs to be innovative to either fully eliminate the wrap or use alternative sustainable materials which can be recycled. Paper and pulp are emerging as key substrates across many food and FMCG packaging and a similar movement regarding these materials is seen for the tea
sector."

Viju goes on to explain: "Consuming tea should be a moment of joy for the consumer, and we haven’t seen much innovation in the tea-bag market over the last few decades. We see the same format of tea bags with slightly varying shapes, and the consumer experience feels pretty flat. The [coffee sector], for example, has made the concept of coffee into a premium product. The tea sector has not yet reached that level of innovation. There is an appetite for the tea sector to transform itself, but brand owners
are risk averse, and therefore, we are seeing low levels of innovation."

Read the full and original article in Tea & Coffee Trade Journal