Green Tea Fannings and Dust for Tea Bags: A Packer's Guide

21 October 2026 · Updated 1 November 2026

Four Goo Farm green tea grades for tea bags side by side: Broken, BPS, fannings and powder dust, from larger leaf pieces to fine powder

In short: Goo Farm supplies six green tea grades for tea bags and extract: fannings, powder dust, BPS, PS, Broken and stalk. Fannings load 26 tons per 40HC, about 13 million 2-gram bags; powder dust loads 28 tons and gives the fastest, lowest-cost brew.

Thirteen million. That is about how many 2-gram tea bags one 40-foot high cube container of our green tea fannings can fill: roughly 26 tons of tea, portioned 2 grams at a time. For a tea bag packer, the grade decides that number. It also decides how fast the bag colors the water, how cleanly the machine doses, how much fine powder escapes through the paper and what the tea in each bag costs. This guide puts the six Vietnamese green tea grades we supply for tea bags and extract side by side, green tea fannings, powder dust, BPS, PS, Broken and stalk, with the figures a packing line works with.

Green tea fannings and five other grades on one sieve

After drying, our green tea is sieved by particle size. The smaller the particle, the faster and stronger the brew, and the more tea fits in a container.

Grade	Particle	Liquor	Taste	Tons per 40HC	Indicative FOB Hai Phong, USD per kg
Broken	Small broken leaf pieces, larger than fannings	Bright green	Strong, vegetal, distinctly bitter, slightly astringent	22	0.71–1.10
PS	Medium leaf pieces	Orange-yellow	Strong and vegetal, distinct bitterness, light astringency	22	0.67–0.71
BPS	Flat pieces of 4–5 mm, yellow to dark green	Bright green	Rich	23	0.61–0.87
Fannings	Fine, small broken particles	Natural tea color	Strong and vegetal, clear bitterness, mild astringency	26	0.58–0.73
Powder dust	Finely ground powder	Dark green	Strong and vegetal, distinctly bitter, mildly astringent	28	0.43–0.47
Stalk	Green stems of 0.5–1 cm	Green-yellow	Strong and vegetal, clearly bitter, slightly astringent	15	0.18–0.19

Prices are the indicative FOB Hai Phong ranges on our list in October 2026, for one 40HC; they are not an offer, and the current figures are on our Vietnam tea prices page. Tons per container are for standard packing and are confirmed for your packing before you order.

Vietnam green tea fannings from Goo Farm against a centimetre ruler, showing the fine, evenly broken particles used in tea bags

What the tea in one bag costs

Tea bag packers think in cost per thousand bags, not per kilogram. A 2-gram bag gives 500 bags per kilogram; a 1.5-gram bag gives about 667. The table converts our indicative FOB prices into the cost of the tea inside 1,000 bags.

Grade	Tea cost per 1,000 bags of 2 g, USD	Per 1,000 bags of 1.5 g, USD	2 g bags from one 40HC
Broken	1.42–2.20	1.07–1.65	about 11 million
PS	1.34–1.42	1.01–1.07	about 11 million
BPS	1.22–1.74	0.92–1.31	about 11.5 million
Fannings	1.16–1.46	0.87–1.10	about 13 million
Powder dust	0.86–0.94	0.65–0.71	about 14 million

These are tea costs at FOB Hai Phong only. Sea freight, duty, filter paper, string, tags, envelopes and your own labor come on top. Two things follow from the table. First, at the low end of each range the difference between the cheapest and the dearest grade is about USD 0.56 per thousand bags, less than a tenth of a US cent per bag, so the brew your customers expect should decide the grade, not the price alone. Second, the smaller grades also load more tons per container, which lowers sea freight per bag as well.

Five tests to run on your own line

A specification sheet tells you what the lot is. These tests tell you how it behaves in your product. Run them on the sample, next to the tea you buy today.

Brewing curve. Put one 2-gram bag in 200 ml of water at about 80 °C and lift it at one, two and three minutes. Note the color and strength each time. Fannings and dust give up their color fastest; BPS and Broken, with larger pieces, take a little longer.
Fines through the paper. Shake a filled bag over a sheet of dark paper for ten seconds. Fine powder that falls through will cloud the cup and the customer's saucer. Powder dust usually needs a tighter filter paper than BPS.
Dosing. Fine particles flow differently from flat pieces, and the same volume weighs differently. If your machine needs more than a sample to run a dosing trial, tell us how much when you ask for samples.
Standing color. For iced tea and ready-to-drink use, leave the brewed liquor for two hours and look again. Green tea liquor darkens as it stands, and some lots darken faster than others.
Moisture and smell. Check the moisture against the specification, at most 6 to 7 percent across our grades, and smell the opened bag. Fine tea absorbs other odors quickly, which is why storage and packing matter.

BPS green tea from Goo Farm brewed in a white cup: a bright green-yellow liquor beside the dry leaf

Choosing by product

Standard retail green tea bags: fannings, the grade most packers ask us for, or BPS when you want a fuller cup.
Food service and fast-brew bags: fannings or powder dust, for full color in a short steep.
Bags with visible leaf pieces: BPS or Broken, which keep the character of the leaf and look like tea when the bag is opened.
Customers who prefer a yellow cup to a green one: PS, which brews orange-yellow.
Green tea extract and instant green tea: BPS, fannings and powder dust, where yield and speed matter more than appearance.
Jasmine tea bags: our Jasmine TH Green Tea is scented on a medium flaky leaf; see our flavored tea guide for the scented grades.
Stem tea and blends: stalk.

For whole-leaf green tea, such as OP, Pekoe, BOM and Madina, read our guide to Vietnamese green tea grades.

The stalk question

Stalk is the cheapest line on our green tea price list, USD 0.18–0.19 per kg FOB Hai Phong, and it is a real product rather than waste: tender green stems of 0.5 to 1 cm that brew a green-yellow, strong and vegetal cup. Buyers use it in two ways. Blenders mix it with leaf grades to bring down the cost of a green tea blend. Distributors sell it on its own as stem tea, a style that tea drinkers in Japan know as kukicha.

Watch the freight. Stems are light for their volume, so a 40HC carries only about 15 tons, against 26 tons of fannings. For every USD 1,000 the container costs to ship, stalk carries about USD 0.067 per kilogram of freight, more than a third of its FOB price. On long routes, landed cost rather than FOB price is the figure to compare.

Packing fine grades for the voyage

Fine green tea has two enemies on the way: moisture and leakage. We ship fannings and dust in woven PP bags with a polyethylene inner liner, or in kraft paper sacks with a liner, stacked on pallets. Export cartons and vacuum aluminum bags in cartons are available when you want a longer shelf life or smaller units for your warehouse.

If you sell under your own label, we can print the bulk bags with your design, or pack finished tea bags under your brand. Pack types and loading figures for every grade are on our packing and loading page.

Where the tea is made and tested

All six grades are processed in our own factories in Phu Tho and Yen Bai, northern Vietnam. The fresh leaf is heated soon after plucking to stop oxidation, then rolled, dried and sorted into grades. The Yen Bai factory is ISO 22000:2018 certified by Vinacontrol, certificate No. 31905-FSV, for the manufacturing and trading of dried tea.

Tea bag brands usually ask about pesticide residues first. Two recent laboratory reports on samples of our dried green tea are published with their first pages: an SGS test report covering a 1,150-analyte screen, and a Eurofins test report with the results set against EU maximum residue levels for tea. A report on one sample does not cover every future lot, so SGS or Dai Viet Control inspection and Eurofins tests can be arranged for your own shipment.

Frequently asked questions

What are green tea fannings? The fine, small broken particles that remain once the larger leaf grades have been sieved out of dried green tea. They brew fast and strong and fill a tea bag evenly, which is why most tea bag packers use them.

Should I use fannings or dust in my tea bags? Fannings for a standard bag with a clean cup; powder dust when you need the fastest, darkest brew or the lowest cost per bag. Dust needs a tighter filter paper. Test both with your paper and your machine.

How many tea bags does one container make? With 2-gram bags, about 13 million from a 40HC of fannings, 14 million from powder dust and 11 to 11.5 million from BPS, PS or Broken.

Can you pack the tea bags under our brand? Yes. We pack private-label tea bags, and we can also print bulk bags with your brand. Tell us the bag size, the paper and the carton you need.

Is your green tea tested for pesticide residues? Yes. Recent SGS and Eurofins reports on samples of our dried green tea are published on our website, and tests on your own shipment can be arranged before loading.

What is the minimum order? There is none; the price depends on the quantity. On our product pages the indicative price per kilogram steps down for orders from 4 and from 10 containers.

Request samples for a line trial

Tell us your bag weight, your filter paper, the product and the destination port, and we will send the grades that fit with a specification sheet for each. Contact us, or see every grade in our green tea range. Our factories produce about 7,000 tons of tea a year, and our team brings more than 40 years of experience in tea.