Squeezing tea sachets is a dream come true for kitchen gadget lovers. We're posting some photos of squeezers we found online.

The tea sachet squeezing debate rages on here at two leaves and a bud. Okay, that’s a bit of an overstatement. When I bring it up, people tend to shrug.

Did you read last week’s post on this topic? Maybe it confused you why we’d ask a question about tea we don’t have an answer to ourselves. We actually pride ourselves on not having all the answers, because we love to learn about tea. (And nobody likes a know-it-all, right?)

But you have to admit, some of these things are quite subjective.

The responses we got on our Facebook page to the “To Squeeze or Not To Squeeze” question were pretty great.

Mare Anderson says our teas are tasty enough that she doesn’t have to squeeze, “but most of the time I prefer to give that little satchel of flavor a little hug!”

Suzanne Pleau Kinnison squeezes because she wants “to get every bit of goodness.”

Gordon Roe and Brandon Briscoe squeeze most of the time, but Deb Mazzaferro warns that squeezing the sachet makes the tea too tannic.

So, it’s a tough call.

Here’s what I’ve got this week: What does the staff here at two leaves do?

I’m so glad I asked:

Jason Burton, our Kansas City-based Twitter guy, doesn’t squeeze. “Purists don’t squeeze!”

Jen Okeson, head of customer service, squeezes sachets of green tea, but not black tea. Why? “A cloudy liquid comes out when I squeeze the green tea. I can’t explain it. I just like it.”

Richard Rosenfeld, owner and founder, says he squeezes on weekends, but not on weekdays. What?! “I’m always running out the door to do something on the weekends, so I can’t wait for the bag to drip. I give it a squeeze and then toss it.”

Bess Hammer, business development manager, neither squeezes nor dangles. “I leave the sachet in the cup while drinking, and keep refilling the mug.”

Phil Edelstein, our new director of marketing, says, “I squeezed as a child, but not anymore.” I’m sad I didn’t press him for more information.

Lindsay Winkler, graphics, prefers her tea sachets shaken, not squeezed.

Kelly Hayes of customer service and Gigi Durand, comptroller, agree that they have a “gentle squish while shaking” motion for their tea sachets. That sounds like something worthy of YouTube.

Me? I squeezed before I started working at two leaves and a bud. Now I make a sport of getting a soggy tea sachet to the trashcan without leaving drips everywhere. I’m easily amused.

I still want to know from you — do you squeeze? Do you have a tea sachet maneuver that’s not listed here, but might amuse us all? Please comment at the end of this blog, because we want to know!

Next week: I’m sending e-mails to some of Richard’s favorite tea experts for their opinions on the squeeze debate. Stay tuned!

Using the sachet's string and a spoon to squeeze the heck out of a tea sachet.

So tell me: When you’ve just steeped a mug of tea, and you’re taking out the sachet, what do you do with it? Do you dangle the dripping sachet over your mug and quickly navigate it into a trash can, or do you squeeze the life out of the sachet over your mug, either with your fingers or the help of a spoon?

And if you really want to be considered a tea lover, which is the right answer? It seems to me that squeezing the sachet says, “I love this tea down to the very last drop.” But then again, in the past I’ve squeezed a tea bag against the empty mug with my thumb after enjoying some tea, and found that teaspoon of liquid incredibly bitter.  Do I want that in my tea?

So, I did what any curious tea neophyte would do. I Googled, and then I held a taste test with the local tea guru (that would be two leaves and a bud founder and owner Richard Rosenfeld.)

And here’s what happened:

Google is full of tea purists warning you that the taste of your tea will be ruined by squeezing a tea bag into the mug. It releases too much tannic acid into your tea, they say — which is why I get that overly dry, bitter taste from teabag squeezings. “Squeezing your tea bag is a crime,” someone commented on one site, rather emphatically.

But taste aside, there’s a health element that’s bothering me. Dr. Steven Pratt, author of “Superfoods Rx,” tells us which foods on the planet are the best, and makes a big point of having tea on his list of approved Superfoods. (No big surprise there — I can write you a list as long as my arm on all the reasons why tea is good for you.) But he adds this: “Squeeze the brewed tea bag to almost double the polyphenol content [in your tea].” Nothing against polyphenols, Dr. Pratt, but what if I just want to enjoy my cup of tea? If it doesn’t taste good, I’m not going to drink it at all. Then, no health benefits for me.

So I set up a taste test, explaining to Richard that he’ll be tasting teas prepared in slightly different ways. He doesn’t know what I’m doing, but he patiently puts up with my in-office antics.

Richard taking the blind taste test. The tea-squeeze challenge.

First, our Organic Assam black tea:

Richard detects the mug that includes a squeezed sachet is a little stronger. The color is darker, he notes, the scent is about the same, but ultimately he prefers the non-squeezed tea. “The average consumer wouldn’t be able to detect the difference,” he says.

Then, Organic White Peony tea:

No difference detected. Not even in the color of the tea.

Finally, Organic Orange Sencha, a green tea:

He thinks the tea with the squeezed sachet might be a little more orangey tasting, and a little more astringent. But he’s not certain.

My research isn’t over. First, I want to hear from you: To squeeze, or not to squeeze? Second, I’m going to compare more kinds of tea in squeeze tests. Could it be that because our tea is whole leaf, rather than the sort of tea dust you find in cheap tea bags, that squeezing doesn’t affect it so much? Next up: we’ll taste a bag of Lipton tea, squeezed, against a higher end, whole leaf black tea.

As for our tea, maybe you’ll detect a difference, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re so used to squeezing the sachet into your tea that it doesn’t matter to you either way. And if you want all of the polyphenols Dr. Pratt says are in that tea sachet but not risk adding any strange taste to your mug of two leaves and a bud, here’s my recommendation: Squeeze the sachet into a separate cup, and drink that bitter tasting liquid down fast, like you would a wheatgrass shot. Wheatgrass is supposed to be good for you, too. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the taste.

We’re not exactly a sleepy little tea company these days.

We're tasting different versions of Alpine Berry Herbal tea.

In fact, we’ve always got something brewing (sorry) around here. Recently we mailed out samples of our Açai White Tea to some volunteers we found on Facebook and Twitter, because we want them to tell us if they prefer what’s in our current sachets, or if they like a different sample we sent them, since we’re considering changing the formula. If you’d like to be a part of our tea tastings in the future, stay tuned to our Facebook page and follow our tweets — pretty soon we’ll be trying out new versions of Tropical Goji Green and Orange Sencha, and looking for feedback.

Alpine Berry Herbal Tea — big pieces on the left, and what came out of a current sachet on the right.

This afternoon, Richard was dumping a pile of what looked like potpourri onto a piece of paper — turns out it was actually our Alpine Berry Herbal Tea blend, but a sample with much larger pieces than what typically appears in our sachets. And then he started tasting it against a sachet of Alpine Berry. Typically, when tasting tea you brew it at double strength, so what he ended up with were three cups of tea that had the thick, bright red color of cough syrup. And when we tasted them, boom — they were packed with big berry flavor. (It makes sense — Alpine Berry is air-dried berries and fruits. I’m sitting here eating big pieces of apple out of the larger pieced sample right now. That sounds weird, but they taste good and I’m hungry.)

So, why did he need to taste these against each other? “The bigger pieces would look so pretty in a sachet,” Richard said. “We’ve got the beautiful sachets, so we might as well make use of them.” Well, it turns out that he prefers the taste of the Alpine Berry mix in smaller pieces anyway — the smaller pieces have more surface area, so they lend more flavor to the tea.

Also this afternoon I held a blind taste test with Richard to determine if it really matters if you squeeze your tea bag (or rather, sachet) into your mug after steeping. Stay tuned — we’ll be writing more about that in the near future, including the results of our blind taste test.

Finally, this last weekend the ESPN Winter X Games were held just up the road from us at Buttermilk Mountain. Marketing manager Bess Hammer went on her own extreme adventure, and coincidentally spotted Richard hiking up the Highland Bowl at Highlands Ski Area on Saturday, so they made the hike together. Überfit Richard took pity on Bess and actually carried her snowboard up to the top of the bowl (the summit is 12,382 feet and not exactly an easy hike). At the top, Richard’s friend Kim brought out a thermos and served some steaming Açai White Tea from two leaves and a bud, of course! Here’s a great photo of Richard and Bess once they made it to the top on this beautiful, sunny day.

Richard and Bess at the top of the Highland Bowl — two leaves' next staff meeting location, perhaps?