Why do tea bags sometimes float and sometimes sink? Over the past few weeks, when making tea, I've noticed that after filling the mug with water, the teabag that has been placed inside sometimes floats to the top, and sometimes sinks/stays at the bottom of the mug. I don't have any proper statistics, but I'd say this occurs on a roughly 50/50 basis. I should add that the teabags are all from the same box.
I'm unsure as to why this happens - I'd expect the result to be consistent instead of varying. Does this happen because of the way the boiling water is poured over the tea bag? Does the temperature of the water matter (sometimes I leave the kettle standing for longer than other times)? Perhaps the convection current is stronger the hotter the water is which would lead to the bag rising for hotter water temperatures?
My friend also suggested that perhaps the oxygen content of the leaves plays a role. Say some tea bags (in the same pack) are on average "fresher" than others, meaning that the leaves have more oxygen in them. Perhaps a higher oxygen content of the leaves means a higher chance that the tea bag will float? Perhaps some tea bags are just more aerated than others?
Many thanks for any answers.
 A: The material from which the teabag is made is porous and allows air to pass through it. So if you gently lower a teabag into liquid the rising liquid expels the air through the (dry) upper part of the teabag and the teabag sinks.
However, if you wet the material of the teabag then the water spreads out over the material to form a liquid film that seals all the pores in the material, so the wet material will not allow air to pass through it. If you managed to uniformly wet the material of teabag before dropping it into the tea then you have in effect created a bubble of air and the teabag will float.
These two scenarios are extremes, and in practice the wetting is rather more chaotic. Whether any air is trapped in the teabag will depend on how exactly the water pours over it, and I'm not sure I care to make any predictions without trying the experiment (and since I'm a coffee drinker not a tea drinker I have no tea bags to hand).
A: Sometimes, bubbles form on the tea after it is placed in the water. So, it sinks, then floats after some time has passed, I theorize that it rises due to the new bubbles, which are diffused out of the tea (dissolved gasses).
A: I have studied this through my own tea rituals (ASD) and I can tell you the four things that factor into how much air stays in the bag are:

*

*where the teabag is in the cup and

*how hot the water is

*pouring the water directly on the bag

*dunking the bag to the bottom of the cup quickly

If the teabag lays in the bottom of the cup and you follow the other steps i.e. the water is actually boiling or within a second or two of the kettle switching off, then you will get lots of potential air.
I think this is because the whole bag is engulfed immediately, so the paper swells a small amount, the dunking then heats the air, which then expands and up it pops. The teabag will have lots of bubbles of air, and a froth of smaller ones, giving you a fully expanded bag.  If your bag doesn't look to have much air, dunk! You should be pleasantly surprised by how much expansion you get.
Of course due to minor variations, you will get more or less each time, but it is the best way to trap air that I have found, if that is your desire.
If you don't want air, stand the teabag up along the side of the cup, let the kettle stand for a couple of seconds once it has stopped boiling, pour on the opposite side of the cup. The water will rise up the bag slowly, giving the air time to escape. At that point dunking become irrelevant, as the teabag has been slowly engulfed in the water excluding the sir most effectively rather than trapping it.by pouring the water over the whole bag.
P.S. my experiments have all been done with Yorkshire Tea, which comes in the large flat rectangular bags. I have no idea if the same technique would work with 3d shaped bags.
Mads4it
Kitchen Experimenter
