Thanks to our source today for the history lesson about the tea bag, its origins and its modifications through time. The blog even puts the tea bag as the reason tea is so very popular in Great Britain today.

In an attempt to cut costs and provide only samples of tea to prospective American customers, the Englishman and tea merchant Thomas Sullivan sent out tea in small silk purses. Not really knowing what to do with them, the Americans just dunked them into cups of hot water. Sullivan received complaints that the silk was too fine and so he created gauze tea bags. There you go – tea bags.

However, it took the Tetley tea company to spot the real potential of the tea bags as a commercial enterprise in 1953. Not until 1964, however, was a finely perforated bag developed that didn’t “taint” the tea. With this development, tea bags really started flying off the shelves.

Today we have tea bags in all different types of shapes. We have round ones which apparently Tetley came out with in 1989. We have drawstring bags and pyramid bags, too. Lipton even has their flow through tea bags.

As the blog post points out, given the big surge toward time saving devices in the last century, perhaps the tea bag did save the tea industry. Who had time to make a cup of tea the old fashioned way?

Source: Happy birthday to the 100 year old tea bag

I knew tea was doing well but this takes the cake…or should I say, the marinades, sweets and dairy. The International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. company is adding tea flavors to its product line. Due to the increased interest in tea for its health benefits, as well as just being a great calming beverage to drink, the company believes there will be interest in using tea flavors in food. If you remember the post I did on cooking with tea, you will know this is a good idea they have.

They also cite the Nestle Green Tea Kit Kat bars being sold in Japan and the plans by the UK company Pecan Deluxe to add green tea extracts to chocolate. Yum! Yum!

A market research group called Packages Facts estimates that sales for different forms of tea will double by 2013 and be at $15,000,000,000 per year. Yep! That’s fifteen billion. They believe the healthy naturalness of tea is the big draw to consumers in the US.

The company, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., will put its emphasis on creating the tea flavors directly from the tea itself. They also plan to recreate the essence. Not sure how they do that. They are aiming at markets in the US, China and Singapore but planning to individualize the flavor profile for each country as each prefers tea different ways.

Source: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=86058-international-flavors-fragrances-nestl-tea-flavor-green-tea

There’s a new tea brand coming to the U.S. At least right now, it’s coming to the eastern U.S. The brand is the 108 year old family owned Punjana Tea. An Invest Northern Ireland sponsored trade mission to the U.S. in Boston and New York back in March had Punjana signing up with Tree of Life, a distributor, and the Stop and Shop chain of stores. Stop and Shop has about 300 stores on the east coast.

As for Punjana, they are the market leader in Northern Ireland. They blend teas from Assam and Kenya. Ross Thompson, who is the third generation owner of Punjana, said they are getting an encouraging response from their Punjana Fairtrade and Decaffeinated tea varieties as well as excellent reviews of their Irish Breakfast tea which will become available in the US in July.

Source: http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=78010