# PG Tips Original, 160 Tea Bags 464g ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £6.80 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/pg-tips-original-160-tea-bags-464g/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/pg-tips-original-160-tea-bags-464g/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** PG Tips **Price:** £6.80 GBP **Servings:** 160 cups **Price per cup:** 4.25p **Caffeine:** Caffeinated **Brew temperature:** 95C **Brew time:** 3-5 min **GTIN:** 8712100712388 **Stock:** instock ## Summary PG Tips Original is the everyday British black tea in its large household box, one hundred and sixty pyramid bags of brisk, malty leaf blended to keep its shape through milk, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the box for a house that drinks tea all day.Ingredients and dietary suitability: The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. Boiling water, three minutes, milk in after the bag comes out.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Steeping times, hard-water adjustments and storage are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below. ## Description PG Tips Original is the everyday British black tea in its big-box format: one hundred and sixty bags, four hundred and sixty-four grams of leaf, and a blend built for one job, which is to taste like tea through milk. That last part sounds obvious and is not. Milk flattens delicate tea almost completely, and a great deal of what makes a blend interesting in the cup disappears the moment it goes in. An everyday blend is engineered the other way round: brisk, malty, tannic enough to keep its shape, so that what reaches you after a splash of milk is still recognisably strong tea rather than beige water. The maths on this box is the reason to buy it rather than the smaller one. Dividing the pack weight by the bag count gives 2.9 grams of leaf per bag, which is a full-sized everyday bag rather than the lighter fill you find in some forty-bag boxes, and it is a large part of why this one brews strong in a mug without needing two bags. The Taste Profile Briskness: ●●●●● (5/5) The defining quality of an everyday blend. It arrives quickly, cuts through milk and does not dawdle. Malt: ●●●●○ (4/5) A rounded, biscuit-like depth underneath the briskness. This is what stops a strong tea tasting merely harsh. Body: ●●●●○ (4/5) Full and coppery. The liquor is properly coloured rather than thin, which matters when milk goes in. Astringency: ●●●○○ (3/5) Present, deliberate and entirely under your control through steep time. Four minutes turns it from firm to sharp. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.5 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind PG Tips PG Tips is one of the small handful of names that define the British everyday brew, and it sits in the national shelf alongside Yorkshire Tea and Tetley rather than in the speciality aisle. The brand is known for its pyramid bag, which exists for a straightforward mechanical reason: a pyramid gives the leaf more room to move than a flat pillow bag does, and leaf that can move extracts faster and more evenly. Whether you can taste that through milk is a fair question, but it is not a marketing invention. The origins in the blend, the bag material statement, any certification marks and the current allergen advice must all be read off the current UK pack rather than taken from this page. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. What You Are Actually Buying Count and weight: 160 bags, 464g. That is 2.9 grams of leaf per bag, which is our own calculation from the two figures the pack states rather than a declared serving size. A blend, not a single origin: everyday tea is blended to hold a consistent character box to box, which is why yours tastes the same in February as it did in July. Which gardens go into it is a matter for the pack and the blender, not for us to claim. What it is not: not a delicate tea, not a leaf to drink clear and study, and not resteepable. It is built to be strong, fast and reliable. How Does PG Tips Original, 160 Tea Bags 464g Compare to: PG Tips Original English Breakfast, 80 Tea Bags 232g: the same everyday character in half the box, at the same 2.9 grams a bag. Buy the eighty if you drink tea occasionally or want to try the blend; buy this one if tea is a fixture in the house. Yorkshire Tea Original Everyday Blend, 80 Tea Bags 250g: the other national everyday tea, and the direct rival. Yorkshire reads slightly rounder and softer to us where PG Tips reads brisker and sharper, and which one you call correct is mostly a matter of what you grew up drinking. Tetley Original English Breakfast, 240 Tea Bags 750g: the bulk-buy comparison. Tetley in the very large box brews lighter in the mug, so it is the one to choose if the priority is volume rather than strength. PG Tips Decaf Black Decaffeinated, 70 Tea Bags: the same brand for the evening. Worth keeping a box of alongside this one rather than instead of it, so that the after-dinner cup does not have to be a compromise. Ideal Brewing Conditions Everyday black tea is the most forgiving thing on a tea shelf and also the most commonly rushed. A bag pulled out after ninety seconds gives colour without body, which is how people end up adding a second bag to a cup that only needed another minute. The Mug Measure: one bag per mug of roughly 250 to 300ml. At 2.9 grams a bag there is no need for two unless you like it genuinely fierce. Water: straight off the boil. Black tea is one of the few teas that wants full heat, and letting the kettle stand costs you the brisk top note. Steep: three minutes for a standard strong mug. Two is enough if you drink it lighter; past four the astringency starts to lead. Milk: in after the bag comes out, not before. Milk added early cools the water and stalls the extraction, which is why a milk-first mug so often needs squeezing. The Pot Measure: one bag per cup and, if you want the old rule, one for the pot. Warm the pot first with a splash from the kettle and pour it away. Steep: four minutes in a pot, because the larger volume of water loses heat more slowly and extracts more gently than a mug does. Remove the bags: lift them out before pouring the first cup. Tea left sitting on the leaf turns bitter well before the pot is empty, and reheating it later does not work. Getting It Right in the Cup Water temperature: 100 degrees Celsius, straight off the boil. Measure: one bag, 250 to 300ml. Steep: three minutes, covered if you can. Squeezing the bag pushes out the harshest tannins along with the strength, so squeeze only if you want it that way. Hard water: a hard-water area flattens everyday tea and greys the colour. Half a minute longer in the mug puts most of it back. Storage: sealed, cool, dark and away from coffee, spices and anything strongly scented. A box this size lives on the counter for weeks, so keep the inner bag closed. Not resteepable: a used everyday bag has given everything it has. The second cup is colour and tannin without flavour. Best with: buttered toast, a bacon sandwich, digestives, or nothing at all at eleven in the morning. Safety And Purity Ingredients and dietary suitability: The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Allergen note: plain black tea contains no declared allergen of its own, but packing lines vary. Caffeine note: this is a caffeinated black tea and a strong one by everyday standards. We place it in the middle of our scale, and that placement is our own editorial judgement rather than a measurement. Origin and certification: both are matters for the current UK pack. Child safety: a caffeinated tea. ## Product Questions How many cups does a 160 bag box actually make?One hundred and sixty, on the basis of one bag per mug. For a household getting through four or five mugs a day the box is roughly five weeks of tea, which is the main reason to buy this size rather than an eighty. How much tea is in each bag?Four hundred and sixty-four grams divided by one hundred and sixty bags is 2.9 grams a bag. That is our own calculation from the two figures the pack states, not a declared serving size, but it puts this at the full-sized end of everyday tea bags rather than the light-fill end. How long should I steep it?Three minutes in a mug for a standard strong cup, four in a pot. Two minutes gives you colour without much body, which is the usual reason a cup tastes weak and gets a second bag it did not need. Should the milk go in first or last?Last, after the bag comes out. Milk added at the start cools the water and stalls extraction, so the tea never gets going and ends up being squeezed to compensate. The milk-first tradition comes from protecting bone china from hot water, not from flavour. How much caffeine is in a cup?Anyone counting caffeine precisely should check the current UK pack. If you want the same character without it, the PG Tips decaf box is the direct swap. Why does it taste flat in my area?Hard water. Dissolved minerals mute everyday black tea and grey the colour, which is why the same box tastes different in Yorkshire and in Kent. An extra thirty seconds of steeping puts most of it back, and a filter jug puts back the rest. What kind of bag is it?A pyramid bag, which gives the leaf more room to move than a flat pillow bag and so extracts faster and more evenly. The exact bag material statement, including anything about compostability, is on the current UK pack and we do not restate it here. Can I resteep the bag?No. An everyday black tea bag gives nearly everything it has in the first three minutes. A second steep produces colour and tannin with very little flavour behind it, which is not a cup worth making. How should I store a box this big?Sealed, cool, dark and dry, and away from coffee, spices and anything strongly scented. Tea takes on smells from the air readily. Keep the inner bag folded down between uses rather than leaving the box open on the counter. Does it make decent iced tea?It does, provided you brew it strong. Use two bags in 300ml for four minutes, let it cool, then pour over a full glass of ice with lemon. Brewing at normal strength and then icing it gives you a watery drink, because the ice does half the diluting. What does it go with?Buttered toast, a bacon sandwich, digestives, shortbread or a slice of fruit cake. It is a tea built to sit alongside food rather than be studied on its own, and it holds up against salt and butter better than a delicate leaf does. Is it suitable for a teapot or just a mug?Both. In a pot, use one bag per cup, warm the pot first and steep for four minutes, then lift the bags out before pouring. Leaving them in is what turns the second cup bitter. ## Ingredients & Nutrition Ingredients and allergens. The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Ingredients, as published for this product: Black Tea.Typical values per 100ml, as publishedPer 100mlEnergy4 kcalFat ## Flavour Science The flavour of PG Tips Original, 160 Tea Bags 464g is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains exactly why the cup tastes the way it does from the first lift of steam to the last swallow.The outer layer is aromatic: the warm, faintly bready smell that comes off a black tea bag the moment boiling water hits it. Black tea is fully oxidised leaf, and oxidation converts the green, grassy compounds of the fresh leaf into the heavier malty ones you can smell here. Those compounds are volatile and they leave first, which is why a freshly poured mug smells strongest and a mug left to stand smells of almost nothing even though the liquid has lost no strength at all.The flavour spike arrives mid palate, and in an everyday blend it is briskness that carries it. Briskness is the tea trade's word for the quick, bright, faintly mouth-drying lift that a strong black tea gives on the tongue, and it is entirely the point of a blend like this one, because it is the only part of the flavour that survives milk intact. Underneath it sits the malt, a rounded biscuit-like depth that stops the briskness reading as mere harshness. This is the densest stretch of the cup and the part a longer steep develops most: at two minutes the malt has barely arrived, at three it is balanced against the briskness, and at four and beyond the astringency starts to take the lead.The base structure is the lingering finish: a clean, drying tannic note that resets the palate and is exactly why this tea works next to buttered toast and a bacon sandwich. Tannins bind to fat and protein, which is both why milk softens the cup so dramatically and why a strong tea cuts through a rich mouthful of food in a way that a delicate one cannot. A well made cup should still be doing that job on the final mouthful, not just the first.Getting it right in the cup. Use one bag per 250 to 300ml and steep for three minutes in water straight off the boil; under steeping is the most common reason this blend tastes weaker than it should, because the malt is slower to leave the leaf than the colour is and a pale-looking cup at ninety seconds is not actually ready. Keep the mug covered for the first minute if you can, which traps the aromatic compounds in the liquid rather than losing them to the steam. Add milk after the bag comes out rather than before: milk added early drops the water temperature and stalls extraction, which is the real reason a milk-first mug so often needs squeezing to taste of anything. Stored sealed somewhere cool and dark the character holds well, fading slowly in aroma long before it ever turns stale.How water and temperature change it. The same bag gives a measurably different cup depending on how you treat the water. Black tea is one of the few teas that genuinely wants full boiling heat, and a kettle left to stand for a few minutes costs you the brisk top note first. Hotter water and a longer steep pull more of the heavier, deeper compounds for a fuller, rounder, more astringent result; a shorter steep keeps the cup lighter and brighter but thinner. Hard tap water is the bigger variable and the one most people never account for: dissolved minerals bind up the compounds that give tea its colour and briskness, so the same box brews grey and flat in a hard-water area and bright and full in a soft-water one. Thirty seconds longer in the mug restores most of the balance, and a filter jug restores the rest. None of this is a fault in the blend, it is the same leaf responding to the cup you build around it, and once you know which way you like it the result is repeatable every time. ## Recipe Ideas PG Tips Original, 160 Tea Bags 464g is a strong everyday black tea, which makes it the most useful thing in the cupboard rather than the most delicate. Six builds below cover the standard mug, a proper pot, iced tea, a builder's chai, a tea loaf and a brew strong enough to cook with. Recipes, born here first The Standard Mug How to make The Standard Mug with PG Tips Original. 3 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 1 bag PG Tips Original 250 to 300ml water straight off the boil A splash of milk Method Pour water straight off the boil over one bag in a warmed mug. Steep for 3 minutes, covered with a saucer if you have one to hand. Lift the bag out without squeezing it, unless you want the sharper end of the blend. Add milk last, to taste. What you'll end up with: A brisk, full-coloured everyday mug that still tastes of tea after the milk goes in. The Proper Pot How to make The Proper Pot with PG Tips Original. 4 min 4 cups Easy You'll need 4 bags PG Tips Original 1 litre water straight off the boil Milk Method Warm the pot with a splash from the kettle and pour it away. Add one bag per cup and fill with water straight off the boil. Steep for 4 minutes, then lift every bag out before pouring the first cup. Keep it under a cosy rather than reheating it later. What you'll end up with: Four consistent cups instead of one good one and three afterthoughts. Proper Iced Tea How to make Proper Iced Tea with PG Tips Original. 4 min + chill 1 tall glass Easy You'll need 2 bags PG Tips Original 300ml water straight off the boil Half a lemon A full glass of ice Sugar or honey to taste Method Brew 2 bags in 300ml of water straight off the boil for 4 minutes, then lift them out. Sweeten while it is still hot if you want it sweet; sugar will not dissolve properly once it is cold. Cool to room temperature, then pour over a full glass of ice with the juice of half a lemon. What you'll end up with: A clean, strong iced tea. Brewing at normal strength first is what produces a watery one. Builder's Chai How to make Builder's Chai with PG Tips Original. 8 min 2 mugs Easy You'll need 3 bags PG Tips Original 300ml whole milk 200ml water 4 crushed cardamom pods and a slice of fresh ginger 2 teaspoons sugar Method Simmer the water with the cardamom and ginger for 3 minutes. Add the 3 bags and the milk and bring back to a bare simmer for 4 minutes without letting it boil over. Strain into mugs and stir in the sugar. What you'll end up with: A strong, sweet, spiced milk tea. The everyday blend takes the spice far better than a delicate leaf would. Tea Loaf How to make Tea Loaf with PG Tips Original. 60 min + overnight 1 loaf Easy You'll need 3 bags PG Tips Original •300g mixed dried fruit •250g self raising flour 150g soft brown sugar 1 large egg Method Brew 3 bags in 250ml of water straight off the boil for 10 minutes, then cool. Soak 300g of mixed dried fruit in the cooled tea overnight. The next day beat in 250g of self raising flour, 150g of soft brown sugar and 1 large egg. Bake in a lined 2lb loaf tin at 170°C for 60 minutes. What you'll end up with: A dense, dark fruit loaf. Keeps for 4 days in a tin and is better on day two. Tea Brined Gammon Liquor How to make Tea Brined Gammon Liquor with PG Tips Original. 90 min 1 joint Easy You'll need 4 bags PG Tips Original 1 litre water 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar •1 bay leaf and 6 peppercorns Method Brew 4 bags in 1 litre of water straight off the boil for 6 minutes, then lift them out. Add the sugar, bay and peppercorns and use the liquor to simmer a gammon joint for 90 minutes. Rest the joint, then glaze and finish it in a hot oven as usual. What you'll end up with: The tannins cut the salt and colour the outside of the joint. A use for the bags at the bottom of a box this size. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._