History of the tea bag

The Tea bag as we know it today was invented in 1944 however they originally became popular in the early 1900's after tea merchant Thomas Sullivan would send samples to his customers in small bags. It was intended to be removed from the bags before brewing however his customers found it easier to let the tea brew in the bag as it was more convenient. This was in America unsurprisingly and it took us Brits a long time to stop using loose leaf tea, so long in fact tea bags were a rarity in England until after the second world war. Partially though this was due to tea being rationed, it was so important to the moral of the British that it was stockpiled outside of London to avoid the Blitz and soldiers got a bigger allowance than ordinary folks to keep their spirits up.

 Nowadays tea bags account for 96% of all tea consumption in the UK, they are so popular there was even a coffee bag using the same method, this never caught on but then neither did 'instant' tea. The first tea bags were oblong or square in shape and came with a string which enabled you to retrieve it without a spoon and had the makers label on the end to identify what type of tea was enclosed. Today we still have this type but it mostly relegated to places where teaspoons are lacking aka hotels and the bags have a drawstring so that the bag can be squeezed dry. more common are bags with no string they can be square,oblong, circle or recently pyramid shaped, (it is claimed this gives the tea more room to brew.)