[avery17]

Teabags are usually silk right?

[odyssey7]

Usually they’re paper, but misguided companies have been pushing plastic. I guess some consultants somewhere think the plastic format looks like it should cost more. Personally, to me the plastic format looks like a hazard, so I avoid it.

Some research has found that plastic teabags robustly dose the tea drinker with not only microplastics but also nanoplastics:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49845940

[seanhunter]

Teavana tea bags do contain plastic although it seems it may be plant-sourced biodegradable plastic so not sure it counts for a microplastics thing.

https://ceh.org/yourhealth/plastic-in-my-tea-bag/

I think fancy pyramid-shaped teabags are often nylon (ie plastic) and less often silk (eg I think teapigs might use silk). More old-school flat bags are generally some sort of papery stuff, although that could be bleached with something nasty.

If you worry about plastic and sundry chemicals in drinks you're better off just making loose tea. You get a better cup of tea and you know that tea is all that's in it. (other than anything that was already in the water to start with)

[odyssey7]

If Starbucks itself isn’t clearly explaining why its Teavana teabags are safer than other plastic teabags, then the consumer is better off assuming that they’re not.

Premium brands advertise what makes their products premium, so that they can charge more or increase sales. They don’t do it for free out of the goodness of their hearts.

[IshKebab]

> biodegradable plastic

This is green-washing. It's not really biodegradable in the way that it implies.

[rapsey]

Some brands have plastic ones. You should never drink tea from plastic bags.

[thelastgallon]

Plastic Teabags Release Billions of Microparticles and Nanoparticles into Tea: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b02540

[bobim]

Avoid paper also

[bobim]

Polypropylene sometimes