Seek to Misconstrue + a
Failure: The Blog 
August 2018
- When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
- Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
- London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
- Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
- Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start
July 2018
- Fear This Instead Of Failure
- Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
- A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
- The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
- Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti
June 2018
- A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
- US Army Embraces Mistakes
- Blocking A Hymn
- Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
- [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed
May 2018
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
- Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
- This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
- 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
- MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process
April 2018
- Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
- Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
- Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
- Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
- Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged
March 2018
The Accident That Created The Tea Bag
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.
Photo © Flickr User A Girl With Tea
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!
