History of teabags

For better or worse, the tea bag has changed how people drink tea. For the everyday cup of tea, the bag makes the process much quick. Pop it in boiling water and you’re good to go. It’s just a shame that most tea bags contain dustings of leaves that produce the weakest flavour possible. Have you ever wondered who’s bright idea these bags were, who we can blame for most of the poor quality supermarket tea?

You can thank Thomas Sullivan, businessman and resident of New York in the early 1900’s.

While trying to improve his tea business, Sullivan decided to send out samples of his tea to potential clients in small hand sewn silk bags. Thanks to this, his tea quickly became a hit. This wasn’t because of the quality of his tea leaves. It was the silk bags. His customers brewed the tea while it was still in the bags, not knowing any better. Thinking this was the standard thing to do, Sullivans customers were disappointed when future orders of tea didn’t come with the bags.

Demand was so great, Sullivan soon was selling a large amount of tea in little bags. Of course these days bags aren’t made of silk, but they continue to remain a hugely popular way of selling tea.