Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags
Milk after the bag comes out, never before. Cold milk dropped into hot water stalls the extraction, and the rest of the mug goes on wondering why the tea tastes thin; that one habit accounts for more disappointing cups of everyday tea than any blend ever has. Past it, this is exactly what the name says. Brisk at the start, bready through the middle, and it holds its shape rather than fading away when a proper amount of milk goes in. Everyday is a shelf position and not a recipe: nobody is buying this for a quiet afternoon and a good biscuit. It is the tea that lives by the kettle and gets made while somebody is doing something else.
Tetley Everyday, in brief.
Tetley Everyday is Tetley's standard black tea in the softpack format: eighty bags in a sealed film pouch instead of a rigid carton.
The softpack is the refill format: less packaging, no rigid protection, so roll it down and clip it or tip the bags into a caddy once it is open. Three minutes in water straight off the boil, milk after the bag comes out.
Tetley Everyday is Tetley's standard black tea sold in a softpack rather than a rigid carton: eighty bags in a sealed film pouch. The blend is the one most British kitchens already recognise, brisk and malty and built to take milk, and the softpack is simply a lighter, cheaper way of carrying eighty of them home.
Format is the only thing that separates this from a boxed eighty. A softpack has no cardboard skeleton, so it folds flat in a shopping bag, uses less material and costs less to make. It also gives the bags no protection at all once it has been opened, which is the single thing worth knowing before you buy one. Treated properly, by which we mean rolled down and clipped or tipped straight into a caddy, it holds its condition exactly as well as a box does. Left open on a worktop it will not.
Curator notes: the profile of its taste is our own editorial work, set against how the pack looks now and what the brand publishes. Dispatch of this line usually takes 1 to 2 working days. The Q and A tab below also deals with storage, pot ratios and the iced build.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Tetley
Tetley is one of the two or three names that define what British households mean by a cup of tea, and the everyday blend is the workhorse of the range rather than its showpiece.
The blend components, the countries the leaf came from, the bag material, any certification marks and the allergen advice all have to be read off the current UK pack rather than taken from this page. Our own editorial assessment, set against today's pack and the brand's published description, produced the profile you see above.
Packaging: Packaging parts may not all go in one bin, so rely on the notes printed on the UK pack and on your own council's rules.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Eighty bags: Eighty cups is roughly a fortnight for a two-mug-a-day household, or a month for one.
- A softpack, not a box: a sealed film pouch. It is the refill format. Less packaging, no rigid protection, and it needs sealing or decanting once opened.
- An everyday black tea: made to be drunk with milk, several times a day, without thinking about it. It is not a single-origin, it is not a speciality leaf, and it does not pretend to be either.
- What it is not: not a strong-brew blend and not a one-cup bag. Tetley make both of those separately, and they are listed below.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: 100°C, off the boil, every time.
- Measure: one bag per 250ml mug.
- Steep: three minutes standard, four for strong.
- Milk: yes, and this blend is built for it. Dairy or oat both hold up; the tea is brisk enough not to disappear.
- Iced: steep three bags in 400ml for five minutes, cool it, then pour it over ice that fills the glass, with a lemon slice to finish. Brew it strong or ice will water it down to nothing.
- Storage: this is the softpack's one demand. Roll the pack down and clip it, or tip the bags into an airtight caddy. Film that is left gaping lets the aroma go within weeks.
- Not resteepable: a cut-leaf everyday bag gives everything it has on the first brew. The second cup from the same bag is coloured water.
- Best with: buttered toast, digestives, a bacon sandwich, or on its own at eleven o'clock.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Tetley
Tetley invented the drawstring tea bag in the UK and has been a household staple since 1837. The Original 80s and 240s are the everyday picks; the novelty range (Digestive Biscuit, Lemon Drizzle, Cherry Bakewell) is one of the most-distinctive in mainstream British retail. Owned by Tata Consumer Products, Rainforest Alliance certified.
Packaging: Packaging parts may not all go in one bin, so rely on the notes printed on the UK pack and on your own council's rules.
Our commitment to the planet
The taste profile
How does it compare
Everyday black tea is the easiest thing in this catalogue to brew and the easiest to get wrong, because most people underbrew it and then compensate with more milk. Water straight off the boil and a full three minutes does more for this cup than anything else you could change.
The Standard Mug
The Pot
Made with this tea
The Standard Mug
The Standard Mug shows how to brew Tetley Everyday the ordinary way.
- 1 bag Tetley Everyday
- 250ml just boiled water
- A splash of milk
- Pour 250ml of just boiled water poured onto one bag of Tetley Everyday from the Softpack.
- Steep for 3 minutes, 4 if you take it strong.
- Squeeze the bag against the mug's side one time and take it out.
- Add the milk last, never before the bag comes out.
What you'll end up with: The cup this blend exists to make. If it tastes thin, the fault is almost always a short steep rather than the tea.
A Proper Pot For Four
How to make A Proper Pot For Four with Tetley Everyday.
- 5 bags Tetley Everyday
- 1 litre just boiled water
- A warmed teapot
- Milk
- Warm the pot with boiling water swirled round it, then tip the water out.
- Add 4 bags of Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags, one per cup, plus 1 for the pot.
- Pour on 1 litre of water straight off the boil and steep for 4 minutes.
- Lift all five bags out before you pour the first cup.
What you'll end up with: Four even cups instead of one good one and three stewed ones. Leaving the bags in is what ruins a pot.
Proper Iced Tea With Lemon
How to make Proper Iced Tea With Lemon with Tetley Everyday.
- 3 bags Tetley Everyday
- 400ml just boiled water
- Ice, a full glass of it
- Lemon
- Sugar to taste
- Brew 3 bags of Tetley Everyday, 400ml of just boiled water and a 5 minute wait. Deliberately too strong.
- Sweeten while it is still hot if you are sweetening at all, because sugar will not dissolve in cold tea.
- Cool to room temperature, then chill.
- Pour into a tall glass full of ice, finishing with a wedge of lemon.
What you'll end up with: After the ice has melted, this is still iced tea that tastes of tea. Brew it at drinking strength and you get cold brown water.
Stovetop Masala Chai
How to make Stovetop Masala Chai with Tetley Everyday.
- 3 bags Tetley Everyday
- 250ml whole milk
- 250ml water
- A thumb of fresh ginger, sliced
- 4 cardamom pods, cracked
- Sugar to taste
- Simmer 250ml of water with the ginger and cardamom for 5 minutes to get the spices going before any tea goes in.
- Add 3 bags of Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags and simmer for 3 minutes.
- Pour in 250ml of whole milk and bring it back to a bare simmer, not a boil.
- Strain into two cups and sweeten to taste.
What you'll end up with: A brisk everyday blend is the right tea for this. Boiling it in milk would destroy a delicate leaf; this one takes it.
Overnight Tea Loaf
How to make Overnight Tea Loaf with Tetley Everyday.
- 3 bags Tetley Everyday
- 300ml just boiled water
- 300g mixed dried fruit
- 250g self raising flour
- 150g soft brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- Brew 3 bags of Tetley Everyday, 300ml of just boiled water and a 10 minute steep, then let it go cold.
- Soak 300g of mixed dried fruit sitting in the cold tea overnight.
- On day two, the fruit gets 1 large egg, then 150g of soft brown sugar, then 250g of self raising flour, each beaten in. Do not drain the fruit.
- Bake the loaf at 170°C for a full 60 minutes in a lined 2lb tin, then test with a skewer until it comes out clean.
What you'll end up with: Keeps for 4 days in a tin and is better on day two. Serve sliced with butter.
Black Tea Marinade For Chicken
How to make Black Tea Marinade For Chicken with Tetley Everyday.
- 4 bags Tetley Everyday
- 300ml just boiled water
- 2 tablespoons salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 lemon, sliced
- Brew 4 bags of Tetley Everyday, 300ml of just boiled water, 10 minutes: very strong.
- Stir in 2 tablespoons of salt and 2 of brown sugar while hot, then add the sliced lemon and 300ml of cold water to bring it down to room temperature.
- Submerge chicken thighs or a whole spatchcocked bird and refrigerate for 4 hours.
- Pat dry before roasting or grilling, or the skin will not colour.
What you'll end up with: The tannin in a brisk black tea does the same job in a brine that it does under milk: it gives everything else something to hold onto. Cheap bags are the right ones for this.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100g, as published | Per 100g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 1 kcal |
| Fat | 0g |
| of which saturates | 0g |
| Carbohydrate | 0.3g |
| of which sugars | 0g |
| Protein | 0g |
| Salt | 0g |
Ingredients and allergens. Of the 14 major allergens, the ingredient information published for this barcode lists none. Allergen advice moves with the formulation, which means the current UK pack deserves a read before you buy.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: black tea.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. What the pack says outranks anything written here.
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Black tea leaf (blend) | Not stated to us | The whole of the cup: briskness, malt, colour and the tannin structure that lets the tea hold its shape under milk. |
| Cut grade of the leaf | Not stated to us | Everyday bags use a small cut so the surface area is high and extraction is fast. It is why three minutes is enough, and why there is nothing left for a second steep. |
Pack: Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags; a caffeinated black tea in a sealed film pouch. The weight and the best before date appear on the pack itself.
Each gap we have left is something you can find out, though only from the current UK label.
Sourcing & blend. Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags is put together by Tetley, one of the handful of houses that define what a British everyday cup tastes like. Our own editorial assessment makes up the tasting profile on this page, with the pack as currently sold and the brand's published description as reference.
What's in Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags, and what isn't:
- In: black tea leaf in a filter bag, and nothing else declared to us.
- No added flavouring: it is plain black tea and has not been flavoured. There is no fruit, no petal and no added aroma in the bag.
- No added sugar and no sweetener: any sweetness in the cup is the malt of the leaf, not an ingredient.
Asked about this tea
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Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Tetley Everyday, Softpack, 80 Tea Bags, please cite teas.co.uk.
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