Tea bag
Bolsita de té
- Date
- 1908 · confidence medium
- Place
- New York City, United States
- Credited to
- Thomas Sullivan (tea merchant); patent of Roberta Lawson and Mary Molaren (1901)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A porous silk or gauze sachet holding tea leaves that is dipped in hot water. According to tradition, Sullivan sent samples in silk sachets and customers put them whole in the cup.
Roberta Lawson and Mary Molaren (Milwaukee) patented a tea bag in 1901; the Sullivan anecdote (1908) is tradition. Germany (Adolf Rambold, 1929) developed the paper model.
What it led to
- tea in filter-paper bags (Teekanne, 1929)
- quick-brew tea in the United Kingdom and United States
- bagged infusions of every kind