I learned this today. The teabag was a staggering invention in the world of tea drinking, but it was originally called the “tea leaf holder” and was invented to cut down on waste.
Tea drinking began in China in about 2737 BC (according to legend). Teapots have been found in Chinese sites dating back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD). In the Tang Dynasty (618 to 906 AD) tea became the national drink of China. The first Europeans to drink tea were the Portuguese missionaries that were living in China, but they didn’t bring any home. Dutch traders were the first to bring tea to Europe. They bought it in Java and it arrived in Holland in 1606.
The word “tea” probably came into English from the Dutch. They either got it from the Malay “the” or the “tê” from Min Chinese (a language spoken in southeastern China). The Dutch started calling the drink “thee”, which became “tea” when they imported it into England.
Charles II’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, was a huge tea drinker and she made the drink fashionable amongst the wealthy. The East India Company recognized the need and started to import tea. It very quickly became a fashionable drink, but it was not imported in large quantities, which made it very expensive. It was not a drink for regular people.
By 1689, tea was being imported into the UK in larger quantities, but the government decided they would tax it. The tax was so high (119%) that people still couldn’t afford to drink it. Smuggling became so common that more tea was smuggled into the UK than was brought in legally. In 1784, the government realized the folly of this and drastically cut the tax. Tea was suddenly cheap. This happened to coincide with the Industrial Revolution and the people moving to the cities began to drink tea. It became the regular person’s drink.
The process for making tea was not difficult, but it did have some problems. You had to measure the right amount of tea leaves into the pot, add boiling water, leave it to steep for about four minutes, remove the tea leaves, and pour. The difficulties are with the amount of tea leaves to be added and removing the leaves cleanly. Measuring spoons are obviously available, but it is very easy to add too many leaves or not enough leaves. And loose leaves will stick to the side of the pot and be difficult to remove, ending up in the cup. Strainers and infusers are available, but then you have to wash those as well. It was also very difficult to make a single cup of tea. You needed to use a lot of leaves to make enough tea and you would quite often end up throwing a lot of it away. A waste of leaves and a waste of money.
Enter the teabag. The teabag allows for the exact amount of tea to be added to the pot every single time. It makes it very easy to steep the tea and then remove the leaves without any mess.
The first teabag was invented by Roberta C Lawson and Mary Mclaren in 1901. It was a cotton bag that they sewed by hand. You could put it in a cup and have a perfect single cup of tea. They received the patent in 1903 but couldn’t find anybody to manufacture them. In 1908, a New York tea merchant, Thomas Sullivan, started sending out his tea samples in small silk bags. The bags were meant to be opened but his customers just put them in their pots without opening them. The idea took on, people ordered more, and Thomas Sullivan realized he was onto a good thing.
Early teabags used glue to seal them shut, which affected the taste of the tea. Also, the fabric they used was expensive and didn’t allow the tea to seep very well. It took a few more evolutions, but finally, teabags were made of gauze, and they were sealed without glue. However, despite becoming hugely popular in America, teabags were not popular in the UK. People said that it was not the proper way to drink tea. It wasn’t until 1950 that teabags took hold in the UK. In 1950, teabags had a 3% share of the market. Now, teabags make up 96% of all tea sold.
So, teabags were invented to reduce the waste of tea that arises because it is extremely difficult to make a single cup of tea in a pot without using too many leaves. They were invented by Roberta C Lawson and Mary Mclaren in 1901 and were originally hand-sewn cotton bags. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://patents.google.com/patent/US723287
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_bag
https://gizmodo.com/how-the-tea-bag-was-invented-1700351584
https://time.com/3996712/a-brief-history-of-the-tea-bag/
https://www.tea.co.uk/the-history-of-the-tea-bag
https://tea-shirt.co.uk/blogs/news/history-of-the-teabag
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ever-wonder-who-invented-tea-bag-180961469/