Things I’m Thankful For: The Tea Bag
A tea bag. Used for making tea. For which we should all be grateful.
Greetings and salutations, unwashed masses of tea admirers.
As your quaint tradition of being thankful comes ever closer, I thought you might perhaps enjoy an amusing story about something I know all tea drinkers consider quite precious, and of which they are ever grateful: tea bags.
Now many people say that loose leaf tea is the superior way to make tea. But even they must admit that it’s much more convenient to carry a bunch of tea bags than it is to always be cleaning out your tea infuser all the time. But did you know how tea bags came to be? It’s a bit of a funny story, actually.
You see, tea was grown in the Far east and shipped all over the globe, where wholesalers would then divvy up the bulk shipments and sell it to people in much smaller quantities. One particular distributor started packaging his tea in small bags for easier transport and sale. The idea was that they would take it home and pour the tea leaves into their teapot.
But people found that it was much easier to drink their tea when the leaves were still inside the bag, so they just dropped the whole bag into the water and voila–tea bags were invented.
I wonder if it amuses you as much as it does me that your beloved tea bag is basically an accident. But then, without accidents, we wouldn’t know about electricity or gravity. Both of which I enjoy daily.
So let us be grateful, in this bizarre American ritual of yours, that some lazy people made a mistake and invented teabags.
All this writing has gotten me thirsty. Time to kick Thomas so that he’ll make me a hot pot. And so away I go!
Tags: black tea, history of tea, tea, tea bags
