As an avid tea drinker and tea maker I am obsessed with all things tea. I drink tea for health, tea for comfort and I drink tea socially over a good yarn and connection.
I was a tea purist. I only drank loose leaf until I discovered the healthy teabag. This has offered me loose-leaf convenience. But before we get to that lets look at the humble origins of the teabag.
Some historians have discovered that the practice of brewing loose tea in cheesecloth existed in the late 19th century. This was done at home; not a packaged commercial product.
“The idea is thought to have originated in the United States in 1908 when tea importer Thomas Sullivan sent samples of tea in little silk pouches to clients. His intention was that the leaves should be tipped into teapots in the traditional manner, but the recipients obviously did not understand this and popped the whole bag into the pot, expecting further orders of tea to arrive in the same style.
When it didn’t they complained to Sullivan, who recognized the marketing potential and produced the first commercial teabags. By the 1920s, North Americans were brewing most of their tea in bags…”
—A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [The National Trust:London] 2001 (p. 155)
The famous tea company Lipton was the first to capitalize on the marketability of tea bags. “Lipton relied on innovation and sensitivity to changing consumer preferences, and, although Lipton was the first tea sold in packets, it was not the first to be packaged in tea bags. Lipton distributed tea in small, hand-tied bags to hotels and restaurants. Later, he adapted the bags for home use. According to The Lipton Magazine, ‘Lipton continually worked to build a better tea bag, changing form surgical gauze to a specially developed filter paper which imparted none of its own taste to the tea inside.’
In 1952, the Thomas J. Lipton Company began marketing tea in its patented Flo-Thru Tea Bags, four-sided bags designed to improve flavor by exposing more of the tea to the hot water.”
—“Lipton,” Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Volume 1: Consumable Products, Janice Jorgensen, editor [St. James Press:Detroit MI] 1994 (p. 339)
THE MODERN TEABAG: Did you know?
1. Most teabags use fannings, small pieces of tea that are left over after higher grades of tea are gathered to be sold. Traditionally these were treated as the discards of the manufacturing process in making high quality leaf tea.
2. Most teabags are made from bleached paper, nylon or polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This is what the “silk pyramid” teabag is made from unless it states otherwise. This cocktail of plastics and chemicals infuse directly into your tea and don’t break down in nature.
THE HEALTHY TEABAG
1. Choose a biodegradable, delicate plant based mesh bag. They may sometimes be referred to as “biodegradable pouches”, “silk biodegradable bags”.
2. Choose a transparent bag which displays the whole leaf, flower, bark etc This is what I call loose- leaf convenience.
WHAT’S YOUR PERSONALI–TEA?
The loose-leaf tea lover:
▪ Drinks tea autonomously, demanding precision and freedom to add or subtract. (Some mornings, an extra scoop of English Breakfast is required).
▪ Has a time-honored tea ritual. A pot on before breakfast, cup warmed & newspaper crisp. A daily meditation.
▪ Is most likely an artist, designer or right-brained genius.
The tea bag enthusiast:
▪ Needs flexibility. A single serving to whip out between meetings, business deals or clients.
▪ Loves the satisfying weight of a well-steeped tea bag to dunk whilst daydreaming.
▪ Is most likely a high-flyer, executive or busy parent.
Whatever your personali-tea you now have the choice to enjoy tea healthily and consciously.