Grammage, the weight of dry material in each tea bag, is one of the first numbers a brand owner has to fix and one of the easiest to get wrong. Too low and the cup tastes thin next to the competitor on the shelf; too high and you pay for leaf the drinker never extracts. On a string-and-tag machine the fill weight is adjustable, with 1.5 to 3 g being a common example of a working range, so the real question is not what the equipment allows but what your product, price point and buyer need.
What grammage actually controls in the cup
Weight is a proxy for extractable solids. The strength a drinker perceives is the share of soluble matter released into a given volume of water within a given time, so grammage never works alone: it sits in a system with leaf cut, water volume, temperature and steep time. Change one variable and the ideal weight moves, which is why copying a competitor's declared weight rarely reproduces their cup.
Leaf cut and density change the weight you need
Two bags of equal weight can brew very differently. A fine fannings or dust grade has a large surface area, fills the bag densely and gives up its colour and strength within a couple of minutes. A broken-leaf or coarser cut of the same tea is bulkier and needs more time or more weight to reach equal strength. Bulk density also has a mechanical side: a very light, voluminous herb may not physically fit at a high grammage in a standard bag, while a dense material can leave the bag looking half empty. Ask your packer for the bulk density of the actual blend before you commit to a figure.
Cup size and steep time set the target
Choose grammage for the serving your consumer really uses. A 200 ml teacup, a 300 ml mug and a 400 ml travel tumbler each dilute the same bag by a different factor, and retail brands aimed at mug drinkers often run heavier than hospitality formats where the bag goes into a small cup or pot. Steep time compounds this: a product marketed as ready in two minutes needs a finer cut or more weight than one whose pack instructs four to five minutes. Write serving volume and steep time down first, then work back to the weight that hits your target strength.
Herbal blends versus black tea: different weights for different leaves
Black and green tea are dense, high-extraction materials; a comparatively small weight of a fine cut delivers a full cup. Herbal and medicinal blends built on sage, chamomile, linden, mint, thyme or fennel are mostly leaf, flower and stem, with lower density and slower extraction, so equal-weight bags come out lighter in the cup and often look fuller in the bag. Fruit teas add another factor: dried fruit pieces are heavy but release flavour slowly, so they are often combined with hibiscus or apple for body and colour.
| Material |
Character in the bag |
Grammage tendency |
| Black or green tea, fine cut |
Dense, fast extraction |
Lower end of the range |
| Herbal and medicinal leaf, flower, stem |
Light, bulky, slower extraction |
Upper end of the range |
| Fruit tea |
Heavy pieces, slow release, usually blended |
Upper end, blend-dependent |
These are tendencies, not rules. The correct answer for any blend is always what the sample cup says.
Price per cup and how it moves with grammage
Grammage is a direct lever on cost of goods. Increasing the fill from 2 g to 2.5 g adds 25 percent more raw material to every bag, while paper, string, tag, envelope and labour stay essentially the same. For an economical black tea the leaf may be a minor share of the finished-bag cost, so the extra weight is cheap insurance for a fuller cup; for a blend built on costly botanicals, the same step can move the shelf price by a whole price point. Work the calculation as price per cup rather than price per kilogram, and compare it with what your channel, whether chain, discounter, e-commerce or hospitality, expects to pay.
Testing grammage with production samples
Do not settle grammage on a spreadsheet. Ask for sample bags at two or three weights, filled from the actual blend on the production line, so that cut, density and bag format are all real. Brew them side by side under your intended conditions and, where possible, put them in front of a small panel of your target drinkers rather than your own team. Record strength, colour and aroma, then choose the lowest weight that meets the expectation reliably. Because fill weight on a string-and-tag machine is a setting rather than a re-tool, a second round at a refined weight is quick to arrange.
Carton count, case weight and shipping
Grammage flows all the way to the pallet. Twenty bags at 2 g make a 40 g net carton; at 3 g the same count is 60 g, and the individually enveloped bags are bulkier, which may push you into a larger folding carton or reduce cartons per shipping case. Case weight, pallet count and freight cost move with it, and so does the declared net weight on the label, which must match the actual fill within the tolerance your target market allows; check the specific requirements with the competent authority or a regulatory adviser. Deciding grammage early, together with bag count per carton, keeps artwork, cartons and freight quotes consistent from the first run.
For brands developing their own herbal, fruit or black tea line, TeraVella's contract tea bag production in Antalya, Türkiye, running string-and-tag bags in individual envelopes with adjustable fill weight, is built for exactly this sample-and-decide approach; minimum quantities and lead time are confirmed at quotation.
