because it tastes like shit
that's right folks, it's #HotTakeFriday every day on this account
there's probably a legitimate real reason other than the taste. they've used sean bean for ads since his UK army recruitment advert maybe?
oh, the uk army ads were after yorkshire tea
the thing i love about yorkshire tea is you can put a yorkshire tea box in the office, put your good tea inside, and no one will drink your good tea
@floppyplopper While it's not my favourite, it tastes fine to me, but what I *really* hate about Yorkshire Tea is the way the teabags are attached to each other in pairs. Every time I separate a pair there is a 10% chance I will tear one of the bags and spill tea everywhere and it infuriates me. Why do they do this. Tea bags are meant to be convenient.
@whimsy
do you want to know how much microplastic you are taking into your body by having tea bags rather than loose leaf? i'm happy to shut up right now
@floppyplopper honestly even if I did know I don't have sufficient wherewithal to do anything about it. Between ADHD and autism and ARFID and lack of energy due to general ill health if I was worried about microplastics in food I would simply not eat.

@whimsy
ok. first i'm extremely sorry if my toot read with a scolding tone. very sorry i appear to be on one this evening.

the answer about the teabag shape is I don't know. if circular or pyramid teabags had been protected as a trade mark, no one else would be able to use them but it doesn't seem PG Tips or Tetley went for those protections for their relevant bags. both would remove the need to tear open 10% of your bags when making tea.

I assume yorkshire tea would read your email if you asked them about their design decisions.

@floppyplopper nope didn't read as scolding at all don't worry 🙂. It wasn't me who mentioned pyramid teabags though!
@whimsy pyramid and circular tea bags would definitely have fewer perforations to tear through and cause less tea bag loss. i automatically anticipated that as a potential solution, it's what i do
@floppyplopper amusingly PG Tips recently reverted to rectangular tea bags attached to each other in pairs. They even had the nerve to put "new improved shape!" on the box after years of insisting that pyramid bags magically make tea taste nicer (the real advantage, as you noted, is that they aren't attached to each other).

@whimsy
the really laughable bit, for a student of IP rights. if they had made no claims for the functionality of pyramid bags they could have protected them as a trade mark, which is indefinite protection on paying a small renewal every 10 years. once you claim your tea bag is a functional innovation you can only protect it as a patent which has a 20 year limit and is very expensive.

Ritter Sport have a trade mark on square bars of chocolate, everyone else has to make oblongs or other shapes for their chocolate.

@floppyplopper I have to believe that they came to the conclusion that nobody would go to the trouble of retooling their manufacturing for the sake of copying pyramid bags that obviously don't have any real advantage except as a sort of trade dress and it would appear that they were correct in this assessment.
@whimsy
seems to me a few brands do pyramid tea bags. this is only a quick search but Twinings advertise they do them.
@floppyplopper huh, I stand corrected.
@whimsy
not an endorement of Twinings or course. i haven't bought them since tasting their very very poor Earl Grey.