Tea Facts and Quotations

• Thomas Sullivan, an enterprising tea and coffee merchant in New York, is credited with the accidental invention of tea bags in 1904. To control costs, he sent out samples of his tea to potential buyers in small silk sacks as opposed to the customary tin cans. The recipients of the samples didn't bother to remove the tea from the silk sacks and brewed up the tea in that form. To Mr. Sullivan's astonishment, orders began to pour in for tea in little bags!
• Tea bags account for approximately 60% of the tea sold through supermarkets and food service outlets. Surprisingly, the number is very similar in the U.K. where the perception of much greater reliance on loose tea is widespread.
• Contrary to popular perception, "Orange Pekoe" does not mean an orange flavored tea, but simply indicates a certain size of tea leaf (usually the largest pieces of leaf available). Over the years, through marketing efforts, the name has acquired an image associated with high quality.

Tea and Health News

Decafs got you down? Typically the processes used for decaffeinating tea diminishes the flavor to a large extent. I was thrilled to read of a recent study reporting that spraying tea bushes with a particular bacterium lowers the caffeine content of the leaves without disturbing any other components of the leaf. Researchers in India sprayed tea leaves with a diluted concentration of B. licheniformis and found that the tea had less caffeine, good flavor and aroma, and no change in any other characteristics of the leaf. I hope we hear more about this in the future, as there is great demand for better quality decaffeinated teas. Indian J Exp Biol, June 1, 2004; 42(6): 575-80.

Tea and Health News provided by: TheTeaTable.com

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