In China, the tea bags we make ourselves typically don't use high-grade tea leaves. This is because the Chinese tea-drinking process involves not only appreciating the taste and aroma of the tea soup, but also admiring the way the tea leaves unfurl in the water. Therefore, the shape of the tea leaves is an indispensable factor in judging their quality. For this reason, our tea merchants don't use high-grade tea leaves to make tea bags, as this wouldn't fully showcase the beauty of the tea leaves' shape. In the eyes of experienced tea drinkers, the tea leaves used in tea bags are not significantly different from "gao sui" (high-quality broken tea).
So, what exactly is "gao sui"? Also known as "gao mo," "gao sui" is a type of tea unique to old Beijing. It is actually the tea dust sifted out during the tea-sifting process in tea shops. While this dust might be considered useless elsewhere, in old Beijing, it was a very popular tea ingredient among the poor.
