Teabags Turn 100

Editorial by Bruce Richardson

The tea world is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the simple tea bag, an invention that changed how western consumers brew one of their favorite beverages and made a simple cup of tea affordable to the mass market.

The purpose of the tea bag is rooted in the belief that for tea to taste its best, the leaves should be removed from the hot water at the end of a specific brewing period. Then there is the added convenience of placing the tea bag in either a cup or pot, eliminating the need for a tea strainer. But the earliest examples of removable infusing devices for holding tea were not bags. Popular infusers included tea eggs and tea balls - perforated metal containers which were filled with loose leaves and immersed in boiling water, and then removed using an attached chain.

To the dismay of British tea purists, it was in America, with its love of labor-saving devices, that tea bags were first developed. At the beginning of the 20th century, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea merchant, started to send samples of tea to his customers in small silken bags that were hand sewn shut. He was delighted when orders began pouring in and shipments started flowing out to his customers. The only problem was that the customers complained because their tea was arriving in the same loose form it had always appeared. They wanted their tea in the convenient tea bags he had sent them for tasting purposes. It was thus by accident that the tea bag revolution was begun. Responding to the comments from his customers that the mesh on the silk was too fine, Sullivan, in 1908 developed sachets made of gauze - the first purpose-made tea bags.

During the 1920s, these were developed for commercial production, and the bags grew in popularity in the USA. But while the American population took to tea bags with enthusiasm, the British were naturally wary of such a radical change in their tea-making methods. This was not helped by horror stories told by Britons who had visited the USA, who reported being served cups of tepid water with a tea bag on the side waiting to be dunked into it.

The material shortages of World War Two also stalled the mass adoption of tea bags in Britain, and it was not until the 1950s that they really took off.

It was Tetley in 1953 that drove the introduction of tea bags in Britain, but other companies soon caught up. In the early 1960s, tea bags made up less than 3 per cent of the British market, but this has been growing steadily ever since with the invention of tea bag machines that turn out as many as 450 bags per minute. Tea bags made up a phenomenal 96% of today's British tea market.

Today’s tea bags are adapting to the growing demand for better quality – and more expensive – hand-picked loose leaf teas. Tea sales in America this year will top 7 billion dollars, an increase of 300% in only eight years. Tea packers are scrambling to keep up with demand by creating large square, circular and pyramid tea bags. Celestial Seasonings’ Boulder, Colorado plant, located on Sleepy-Time Lane, operates on a 24-hour schedule churning out over a million square tagless bags each day.

Republic of Tea uses a round tagless bag created by an Englishman. And, Tea Forte, led the pyramid revolution several years ago with its tall pyramid teas that came packed in a designer package that caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey and fashion-conscious clientele.

The objective is to put larger and superior grade tea leaves into a roomier disposable container that allows the tea leaves to expand and release their full flavor potential. These new tea bags also allow the addition of herbs and fruits that would have been too large for earlier tea bags. Even Lipton, watching the success of Tea Forte, has launched a new line of grocery shelf teas called Premium Pyramid Teas with such blends as Tuscan Lemon and Black Pearl.

For the serious tea drinker, this tempest in a tea cup of over tea bags is irrelevant. We still take time to steep quality loose leaf teas as they have made for 2000 years. It is the celebration of an age-old ritual that continues to satisfy our longing for the fulfilling taste of tea and – more importantly – a bit of serenity and calm in world moving too quickly. No teabag, no matter how it is engineered and packaged, will satisfy our longing for a quality cup of tea.

I remember touring the New Mexico home of American artist Georgia O’Keefe a few years ago. Passing through the great painter’s pantry, I noticed a shelf holding several canisters with hand-lettered labels. My eyes were immediately drawn to two that Georgia inscribed years ago. On one, the label read “tea.” On the other, the label read “good tea.”

The moment of enlightenment for anyone who begins what the Asian tea masters call “the way of tea,” is when we realize that, in life, we have the opportunity to drink either “tea,” or “good tea.” Which would you rather have?

Bruce Richardson is the owner of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and Benjamin Press. He is the author of a dozen tea books, such as The Great Tea Rooms of Britain and The New Tea Companion. He serves on the Editorial Board for Fresh Cup magazine and advisor to such companies as The Protocol School of Washington and the Specialty Tea Institute of the United States Tea Association.

This article and photographs are copyrighted materials. They may not be used in any form, electronically or in print, without the written consent of the publisher.

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A woman is like a tea bag-

you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt