The humble tea bag makes me anxious
The invention of the small tea bag was an unintentional act of a businessman
In June 1904, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea merchant in the United States, put a small amount of tea samples in small silk bags and sent them to customers in order to reduce business costs. Confused customers tried to soak the small silk bags containing tea leaves in boiling water, and found that this method of making tea is very convenient, and they appreciated it very much. Sullivan smelled a business opportunity in this matter, and used gauze cloth instead of silk to make the prototype of today's teabag.
Since the development of tea bags, it has won the hearts of many consumers. "Daily Mail" quoted Sarah Howe, director of the public relations department of the British Tetley Tea Company, as saying: "I can't imagine what life would be like without teabags."
Tea bags are not just paper and tea
The unintentional design of teabags, after undergoing various improvements, is more in line with the needs of consumers, and the number of teabags used is also on the rise.
Disposable tea bags, while bringing convenience to our lives, will in turn cause any hidden dangers to you and me? Let's start with the material of the tea bag to solve the confusion!
Currently, the most common teabags on the market are made of filter paper, non-woven fabric, PET (polyterephthalic acid), nylon, and PLA (polylactic acid).
Filter paper tea bags are generally made of plant fibers and some synthetic fibers. It contains a certain amount of bleach, and its sealed staples are prone to rust after soaking for a long time and dissolve heavy metals. If the heat-sealing method is used, the heat-sealing paper contains low-melting chemical fibers, such as polypropylene fibers, ES fibers, etc., that is, contains trace plastics.
Non-woven fabrics are not cloth, but plastics. Generally, polypropylene, that is, pp material, is used as raw material, and then a series of processing is carried out after high-temperature melting and spinning. There are harmful substances in the production process of some non-woven fabrics, which will release these harmful substances after long-term high-temperature brewing, which will have some adverse effects on the human body.
PET is a kind of polyester fiber. As a tea bag, it has the characteristics of high texture and high transparency. The tolerance to pH is relatively poor, so it may not be very good for brewing some teas.
Nylon, also known as PA polyamide, tea bags made of it are colorless, odorless, transparent and heat-resistant. In recent years, it is more popular to be used in scented tea. The advantages are strong toughness, not easy to tear, strong visual permeability, larger mesh and easier to brew tea flavor. However, when brewing tea, if it exceeds 90°C for a long time, it may release Harmful Substance.
PLA polylactic acid degradable tea bags are made of renewable plant resources (such as corn) and the proposed starch raw material, commonly known as "corn fiber", which has good biodegradability and can be destroyed by microorganisms in nature after use. It is completely degraded under specific conditions, and finally produces carbon dioxide and water without polluting the environment. It is recognized as a promising new generation of sustainable green filter material.
It is worth noting that there are currently a large number of merchants on the market who claim to use corn fiber tea bags, but actually use fake corn fiber, that is, nylon tea bags. Consumers should pay attention to distinguishing nylon tea bags and corn fiber tea bags. There are two ways to distinguish: one is to burn them with fire, and the ones with hay-like and plant smell are corn fiber tea bags; Tea bags, on the contrary, are nylon tea bags.
