Grocery Stores Stepping Up Their Game?

I’m glad I saw this post. I’ve stopped using grocery store or teabags quite a while ago. It sounds like there are some good possibilities. AND I can sneak them in with the groceries!

I’ve noticed more looseleaf and greater variety. Near me we have a Polish supermarket that has a whole aisle of tea at least half of which is looseleaf including local, Polish, British and other Eastern European Brands, Metro started carrying Lov Organic, Kusmi,Steven Smith and Republic of tea teas. Battaglias in Lorne Park a local store often has a variety of looseleaf and British teas. Recently they started carrying TeaPigs.

Where I am the grocery stores have offered a wide selection of decent tea for quite some time. The conventional chains still only carry tea bags though. The natural food stores offer about 20 to 30 % of their teas as loose leaf.
But I am lucky because tea is a thing here and there are several tea stores I can shop at. There are even a couple of tea manufacturers here.

I have noticed that my local grocery stores are carrying a larger selection of bagged teas. My local health food store has started carrying more loose leaf teas but they are a bit overpriced. Like $24.00 for a 3.5 oz pouch of Jasmine Yin Hoa.I haven’t bought any at that price and don’t intend to but it is nice to know it is there just in case there is a tea emergency.

On a different note I have also noticed that the Asian supermarkets, where I get most of my teas, are carrying more bagged teas.

My local supermarket is a small shop which doesn’t have much if a variety of anything. If I go to the bigger one in town, they have a fairly wide selection (maybe half of one side of an aisle) but it’s all bagged still and fairly limited in terms of brands. The different flavours are broadening, I think, which is good though.