Where Did Tea Bags Come From?

Over the course of history, tea has been processed in different ways in the name of convenience for transport and consumption.  Individual leaves have been rolled into pellets,  and larger amounts of leaves have been molded into bird's nests.  But perhaps no packaging method has impacted the way people consume tea as the tea bag.

Legend has it that in 1908, tea importer Thomas Sullivan decided to send samples of his tea to his customers.  He packaged them attractively in small silk bags.  Said customers were delighted when they found they could steep the entire sachet in their teapot.  They started clambering for more (and complaining when their orders did not show up in sachets), and voila, the tea bag was born.  Cost constraints caused Sullivan to switch from silk to gauze, and later producers moved to the paper fiber bags you often see today. 

But, romantic as this story is, was the tea bag really invented by accident?  There is some question, as there were patents for tea bags on file as early as 1903. 

For the manufacturer, the tea bag was an obvious benefit.  It allows small bits of dust (fannings) to become a useful grade of tea.  Tea could be marketed as a portable, mess free affair.

It is also useful for the tea drinker, if you want to take your tea on the go (making it easy to order a cup of hot water at a restaurant and still enjoy your favorites), if you don't have time to wash a tea infuser, or if you have a lot of people over, and you want an easy clean-up.

However, higher grades of tea are reserved for loose teas, and tea-bag only consumers were never motivated to taste truly special infusions.  And some people claim they can taste the paper.  Today, some tea makers are trying to offer the best of both worlds by packaging broken leaf, or even whole leaf teas in large nylon sachets (which allow room for the tea leaves to unfurl properly).

Tea obsessed and have nothing to do next weekend? I say ROAD TRIP! The only active commercial tea farm in the United States, the Charlston Tea Plantation, is hosting its annual First Flush Festival on May 16. (In case you're wondering, the plantation is owned by Bigelow Tea). They're promising music, food, fun and games . . . and a chance to see how tea is produced.

Interesting, that there is only the one "local" plantation (and a small tea-growing collection of farms in Hawaii), given that tea consumption is going wild. There were other attempts at getting tea to grow stateside, dating back to the colonial times. The British were trying to establish domestic tea in the colonies as early as 1744. A number of failed attempts were made to establish the plants in both Georgia and South Carolina. Early German settlers to Texas also had a try at it. Over time, though, tea drinking faded from popularity. Now that it is back . . . who knows?

Photo courtesty Stock Xchng

Infuse My Life

In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot writes,

"For I have known them all already, known them all:
--Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;"

He's talking about a jaded, worn out man whose life is focused on the mundane tasks of just getting through a day. Those coffee spoons are what give him the artificial energy to keep going. Coffee, as it is consumed during early morning commutes, costing as much per cup as an hour of some people's workday, is a perfect symbol for the modern age.

Tea, however, is connected with looking to the past, where times were simpler, and people had time to reflect on life and renew themselves. I've let tea infuse my life. Which is not to say I don't enjoy the occasional cup of coffee, as a social activity. But when I'm alone, I choose tea. Through the course of this blog, I hope to share why.