Show Notes
Legend says that brewing tea dates back to around 2737 BC, when tea leaves fell into water being boiled for Emperor Shennong of China. There does not appear to be any hard evidence of tea being discovered this way, but evidence we do have suggests that brewing tea did indeed likely start in China, first as part of a medicinal elixir. The first documented reference to this is found during the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC to 1046 BC). By the Qin Dynasty in the third century BC, it had become a relatively popular drink using just the tea (camellia sinensis), rather than mixed with other things as seems to have been common when used medicinally. From the beginning until the early 20th century, very little innovation came about in terms of the common method of brewing tea. This all changed in 1901.
Contrary to popular belief (and what every single tea manufacturer I could find said on their websites, and many-a-tea history book and paper consulted also stated), it was not tea merchant Thomas Sullivan who invented the tea bag in 1908. While he did (probably independently, given his reported design was quite inferior to the original) invent a tea bag that year, he was beat out by about seven years by Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren of Milwaukee, Wisconsin....
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