12 Facts You Need to Know About Instant Tea

Instant tea is a common name in American households. America has a fast living pace. Everything has to be fast so we can achieve a certain amount of work load in a day.

Brewing tea is a luxury that most of Americans can't afford. So the tea in tiny bags (instant tea) seems to be the best solution to enjoy a cup of this wonderful drink.

The person that should receive the most credit for introducing instant tea to America is Thomas Lipton. He is the founder of Lipton tea. Lipton instant tea is very familiar to most households in America.

What's about Thomas Lipton?

Thomas Lipton was originally from Irish. He was a successful business man with many retail stores. When the coffee market was crashing, Lipton decided to venture into tea business in London.

Lipton began to look at the tea plantation in Ceylon. In 1891, he bought many large plantations and officially entered the tea business. In London at the time, tea was mostly reserved for the social elites. What about the mass of working-class people?

Seeing this as a great opportunity, Lipton decided to sell tea for working-class people.However, those people don't have time for boiling water and brewing tea. Lipton thought of instant tea in small package. Pour the tea into hot water. Wait a minute or two... There you have a cup of tea! Later on, instant tea spread to America about the time of World War II. Instant tea has just found a booming and lucrative market.

Today, about 95% of tea consumed in America is made from black tea. 60% of tea are consumed through instant tea. Most tea in tea bags (instant tea) must be chopped into small bits to increase the surface area of the tea in water. We want every area of the tea to be in contact with the water. To make the fragrance of instant tea distinguished, chopped tea are flavored and scented with artificial fruit such as lemon or orange.

Overtime, this way of drinking tea began to travel back to the tea's origins in China and Japan in 1980s.

Young Chinese and Japanese are too busy with the fast lifestyle, enjoying tea instantly gradually became more popular. The traditional ways of drinking tea are still practiced.

Tea bags: Practical and High-Quality?

Tea bags were first invented in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan. Thomas was in the tea business and needed a cost efficient way to advertise his tea.
He thought of placing finely chopped tea into tiny bag connected with a small drink. To brew, people just have to dunk the bag of tea into hot water.
However, this way of enjoying tea was not become so popular until 1950s. It was introduced to England and was very successful.
Tea bags are very familiar to Americans. In America, everything is expected to be fast and efficient.
There are just not enough hours in a day for any of us to slow down!

Every morning, there is only 30 min for you to be ready. Want to enjoy the tea you brew? Can't. Got to go!
You grab a bag of tea. Dunk it into your hot cup of water. Wait...! Drink it really fast.

Convenient? Yes

High Quality tea? Can be!

Want to find out something about tea in bags?... here we go...

1. Half of tea consumed in America are in tea-bag form.
2. Tea in bags is mixture of more than 15 teas.
3. A large mixture of tea to easily replace a type of tea depending on availability.
4. Tea bagging companies are extremely competitive. They would want cheaper teas.
5. Low-priced teas are cheaper to decrease the cost.
6. Low-priced teas are harvested more often
7. Dust of tea (what remains after high-quality tea leaves are selected) sometimes are used for tea bags
8. 71/2 pound can fill more than 100 bags (means more than 100 cups of teas)
9. The bags that contains tea serves as filters
10. Excellent cup of tea can obtain if high-quality tea are put in the bags
11. Brewing tea in bags properly also yield a good cup of tea.
12. Tea in bags will loose its essence if brewing more than one

So is tea still be good tea even in bags? ... Yes, if the tea is good when it goes into the bag.