The invention of the small tea bag was an unintentional act of the businessman
In June 1904, Thomas Sullivan, a tea merchant in New York, USA, put a small amount of tea samples in small silk bags in order to reduce business costs and sent them to customers. The puzzled customer tried to soak the small silk bags containing tea leaves in boiling hot water, and found that this method of making tea was very convenient, which was very appreciated. Sullivan sniffed the business opportunity in this matter and used gauze instead of silk to make the prototype of today's teabags.
Since the development of tea bags, it has won the hearts of many consumers. "Daily Mail" quoted Sarah Howe, the director of the public relations department of the British Tetley Tea Company, as saying: "It is impossible to imagine what life would be like without tea bags."
Tea bags are not just paper and tea
The unintentional teabag design has undergone various improvements and is more in line with the needs of consumers. The number of teabags used has also risen precipitously.
While disposable tea bags bring convenience to our lives, will they in turn cause any hidden dangers for you to me? Let's start with the puzzle of the material of the tea bag!
At present, the most common tea bags on the market are filter paper, non-woven fabric, PET (polyterephthalic acid), nylon and PLA (polylactic acid) and other materials.
Filter paper tea bags are generally made of plant fibers, but some synthetic fibers are also available. It has a certain bleaching agent composition, and its sealed staples are prone to rust after long soaking and dissolve heavy metals. If the hot-press sealing method is adopted, the heat-sealed paper contains low-melting chemical fibers, such as polypropylene fibers, ES fibers, etc., which contain trace amounts of plastic.
Non-woven fabric is not cloth, but plastic. It is generally made of polypropylene, that is, pp material, which is melted at high temperature and then subjected to a series of processing. Some non-woven fabrics have harmful substances in the production process, which will cause these harmful substances to be released 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. It also has bag making and shape retention properties. Generally, there is no elution when soaking, but this type of fiber is resistant to high temperatures. The pH tolerance is relatively poor, so the brewing of some teas may not be very good.
Nylon, also known as PA polyamide, tea bags made of it are colorless and tasteless, with transparency and heat resistance. In recent years, it has become more popular for scented tea. The advantages are strong toughness, not easy to tear, strong visual permeability, and larger meshes, which makes it easier to brew tea. However, when brewing tea, it may be released if the temperature exceeds 90°C for a long time. harmful materials.
PLA polylactic acid degradable tea bags are made from renewable plant resources (such as corn), and the proposed starch raw materials, commonly known as "corn fiber", have good biodegradability and can be used by microorganisms in nature. It is completely degraded under certain conditions, and finally produces carbon dioxide and water without polluting the environment. It is recognized as a promising new generation of sustainable green filter materials.
It is worth noting that a large number of merchants on the market currently 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 them: one is to burn with fire, which has a hay-like, plant-like smell, is corn fiber tea bag; the other is to tear hard, which is easy to tear is corn fiber. Tea bags, on the contrary, nylon tea bags.
