I'll have to put on some good tunes next time we start putting together our dried mint and lemon balm for tea! I was actually debating about getting empty bags to make tea for holiday gifts, but I was worried about the environmental aspect. There are some bags made from organic materials. However it does still seem a bit wasteful to me. Perhaps I will just buy some jars instead and make labels for them so that way we can still give the gift, but then everyone can use their own favorite method of steeping. We have a few of the little metal strainers ourselves, so it is never a problem for us to have loose tea.