PG Tips - Rated by the British Board of Film Classification (PG Tips Teabags)

Member Name: DJBorley

Product:	PG Tips Teabags
Date:	16/01/03 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's tea - Good for you and bloody tasty

Disadvantages: It's not the cheapest, but is far from being the most expensive

First Thought

When I was a kid, I always thought that PG Tips got their name from the same people that rate the films, and could never understand why they were given a Parental Guidance rating, as opposed to a Universal. Maybe because tea is hot, and you needed mummy's supervision to make it? Bless the innocence of youth!

The Background

Every opinion that I write, every article that I read online, and just about everything I do in my working day has something in common. No, not that I wish I were a lottery millionaire, able to do whatever I wanted (though that is a fairly common dream). No, the one common denominator is that they all take place with a cup of tea nearby.

I can trace my love of tea back to when I was a kid. My mum had thyroid trouble (a gland in your next) and had to have her thyroid gland removed. The removal of this gland seemed to up my mums thirst, and where she had always been partial to a cuppa before, now she had a gleam in her eye that indicated she would kill someone if she didn't get her "fix" sooner rather than later. This tea-quest obviously rubbed off on me, as I can quite happily drink tea all day.

Why PG Tips?

I can't remember why we drank PG Tips, or when we first had it in the house. It was always just there. I guess at the time they were the biggest tea company advertised. Remember the PG chimps? All I can tell you is that the brand has stuck with me since. There have been a couple of other teas that I have tried on the way - I'm always a sucker for the "BOGOF" (Buy One, Get One Free) offers in Tesco, but I'll always come back to PG, as not only is it a brand that I know well, but the price is always reasonable.

The Info

Made from the tips of tea leave, hence the name, PG Tips are said to be good for the heart. A recent study in showed that tea drinkers were almost 20% less likely to have heart problems than non
-tea drinkers. I balance this out by supporting West Ham, which gives me a 20% greater chance of a heart attack! No one knows why tea has this effect, but it gives me an excuse to drink another cup, so I'm not complaining!

Antioxidants are present in PG Tips (and all teas apparently), which is a good thing. I'm not too sure why this IS a good thing though. The Cambridge dictionary describes an antioxidant as "a substance which slows down the rate at which something decays because of oxidization combining with oxygen" which is all very well but doesn't tell us why we should drink more tea. It is, however, a proud boast on the side of a PG Tips packet, so I will merely assume that they know more than I do. Either way, it won?t affect the amount of tea that I drink!

PG is naturally low in calories (assuming you don't have half a pint of full-cream milk in your tea) and also low in caffeine with an average amount of 6 cups per day showing no harmful effects on the body.

The Cost

There are various types of PG Tips available. Loose leaves, which I can't stand as you tend to get a mouthful of gunk at the end of a cup. One Cup teabags are the age-old teabags that you throw into a cup and add water to. Lastly, there's my favourite, Pyramid bags, so-called due to their pyramid shape, which apparently allows the tea to move more freely in the bag, thus allowing more flavour.

A swift visit to Tesco.com tells me that you can expect to pay the following prices:

Pg Tips One Cup 100 Teabags 250g - £2.05 (£0.82/100g)
Pg Tips Pyramid 80 Teabags 250g - £1.48 (£0.59/100g)
Pg Tips Leaf Tea 250g - £1.27 (£0.51/100g)

As tea goes, it's about an average price for a known brand.

The taste is as you'd expect for a tea, and to be honest, I don't know how to describe it. The strength of it, the amount of milk and sugar that you add to it, and whether you drink
it hot or cold is dependant on the drinker, though the vast majority of people will drink it as it comes (which explains how McDonalds manage to sell vast amounts of tea each day). As long as it's warm and wet, like all good things, you're unlikely to go wrong.

The End

Boy George famously said that he'd prefer a cup of tea to sex. I wouldn't go that far (if you saw how gorgeous Mel, my other half is, you'd understand why!) However, I'm so keen on PG Tips that a cup of tea after sex is always welcome. Hell, some nights I can even put the kettle on to boil and can still enjoy a steaming hot cup of tea immediately after a session... Remember, it's quality, not quantity! Poor Mel <g>

Dan :)

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