The tea we are used to drinking today isn’t how it first got its start. In fact, tea bags were created on accident.
Tea first started circulating in the seventeenth century. The brewing process was messy, filled with the tea leaves which caused need for a tea strainer to catch the floating debris before it was poured into a cup. But tea bags weren’t originated to make the brewing process any easier. They were created as a way to package and send off samples to prospective clients.
Thomas Sullivan was a tea merchant in the 1900s, and he had a dilemma on his hands. Tea was in high demand, and he needed a cheaper way to send off his samples to his customers. So, he created the simple yet labor-conscious tea bags. Sullivan initially made the bags first from silk (with the thought of presentation in mind), but his customers raved about how clever he was at creating a way to dip the bags into the water, but the silk was just too fine against the metal infuser in the pot. So Sullivan created a new tea bag.
Made first of all from gauze and later from paper, they came in two sizes, a larger bag for the pot, a smaller one for the cup. The features that we still recognize today were already in place – a string that hung over the side so the bag could be removed easily, with a decorated tag on the end.
It’s amazing how one accident and a misunderstanding could be the start of a revolutionary idea that changed the way we use something forever. Thomas Sullivan’s failure led to amazing success!