Tea sticks and chai latte mixes

What is a tea stick?

A tea stick is a narrow, sealed tube filled with tea leaves. The casing is perforated, so hot water passes straight through it. You drop the stick into the cup, stir with it while the tea brews, then lift it out and bin it. That is the whole method.

It sounds like a small change from a tea bag, and in one sense it is. What you notice in practice is what disappears: no paper tag to fish out of the cup, no string wrapped around the handle, no dripping bag looking for somewhere to land, no spoon to rinse afterwards. The stick does the stirring and the straining, and then it is gone.

How to use one

• Boil fresh water. Pour it over the stick rather than dropping the stick into water that has been standing.
• Stir gently for a few seconds to start the leaves moving.
• Leave it to brew. Green tea wants a shorter steep and slightly cooler water than black tea; herbal and fruit blends are happy with boiling water and a longer soak.
• Stir once more, lift the stick out and throw it away. Leaving it in will pull out more tannin and turn the cup bitter.

Each stick is individually wrapped, which is the part that makes them so easy to keep in a drawer, a bag or a hotel room without them picking up smells from whatever is next to them.

The Royal-T flavours

Royal-T is the brand behind the tea sticks stocked here, and the range covers the usual tea families rather than only the novelty end.

• Black tea — Earl Grey, black tea with lemon, and a High Tea blend.
• Green tea — Moroccan mint green tea and green tea with lemon.
• Rooibos — plain rooibos, naturally free of caffeine.
• Fruit — forest fruits, peach, orange, strawberry, and apple with cinnamon.
• Herbal — pure chamomile flowers and verveine.

There is also a handmade wooden tea chest that holds an assortment of sticks, which turns the same product into something you can put on a table in front of guests.

Where tea sticks make sense

They came out of hospitality, and that is still where they are most at home. A stick on a saucer beside a cup looks considered in a way a bag in a wrapper does not, and it saves the kitchen a job. Hotels, meeting rooms, waiting areas and restaurants all use them for that reason.

At home they earn their keep in the same situations, on a smaller scale. They travel well, so they go in a suitcase, a desk drawer or a bag for the office, where the alternative is whatever tea happens to be in the cupboard. They are also easy to hand round: guests pick a flavour, everyone gets what they actually want, and nobody has to brew a pot of one thing.

Tea sticks, tea bags and loose tea

• Tea sticks — one cup at a time, no mess, individually wrapped. Best where tidiness and portability matter.
• Tea bags — familiar, quick and the cheapest way to make one cup.
• Loose-leaf tea — more room for the leaves to open, so more flavour, but you need a pot, a filter or an infuser.

Most households end up with more than one of the three, because they answer different questions. Loose leaf for a slow pot at the weekend, sticks or bags for a cup at your desk.

Keeping them

Tea keeps best away from air, light, heat and strong smells. The individual wrapper handles most of that, so a drawer or a cupboard away from the hob is enough, and there is no need for a special tin. Check its best before date on the box, and if a pack has been open for a long time, brew one and taste it before you serve it to guests — tea does not spoil, but it does go flat.

More tea at Café du Jour

If the sticks have you curious about what else is out there, the rest of the tea range runs alongside them. Green tea, black tea, rooibos tea, herbal tea and fruit tea each have their own pages, and the tea equipment section covers pots, filters and infusers. For something to give away, there are tea gifts as well.