A tea bag (or teabag) is a small, porous, sealed
bag
A bag, also known regionally as a sack, is a common tool in the form of a floppy container, typically made of cloth, leather, bamboo, paper, or plastic. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being lengths of animal s ...
or
packet typically containing
tea leaves (''Camellia sinensis'') or the leaves of other
herbs
Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnish (food), garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typi ...
, which is immersed in water to
steep and make an
infusion
Infusion is the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often called steeping). An inf ...
. Originally used only for making
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...
, they are now made for other
tisane
Herbal teas, technically known as herbal infusions, and less commonly called tisanes (UK and US , US also ), are beverages made from the infusion or decoction of herbs, spices, or other plant material in hot water. Often herb tea, or the plain ...
s (herbal "teas") as well.
Tea bags are commonly made of
filter paper
Filter paper is a semi-permeable paper barrier placed perpendicular to a liquid or air flow. It is used to separate fine solid particles from liquids or gases.
The raw materials are typically different pulp (paper), paper pulps. The pulp may be ...
or
food-grade plastic, or occasionally of
silk cotton or
silk
Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...
. The tea bag performs the same function as a
tea infuser. Tea bags can be used multiple times until there is no extraction left. Some tea bags have an attached piece of string with a paper label at the top that assists in removing the bag, while also displaying the brand or variety of tea. There are also special tea filters that can be used to pour loose tea into and brew it in a bag in a cup.
History
Tea bag patents date from 1903, when Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were granted US patent 723287 for a Tea Leaf Holder, which they had filed in 1901.
[ US patent 723287 was issued on MAR. 24, 1903 to R. G.LAWSON & M. McLAREN for a 'novel tea-holding pocket constructed of open-mesh woven fabric, inexpensively made of cotton thread'.] The first modern tea bags were hand-sewn fabric bags. Appearing commercially around 1904, tea bags were successfully marketed in about 1908 by Thomas Sullivan, a tea and coffee importer from New York, who shipped his silk tea bags around the world.
A popular legend states that this was accidental; the loose tea was intended to be removed from the bags by customers, but they found it easier to brew the tea with the tea leaves still enclosed in the porous bags.
The first tea bag packing machine was invented in 1929 by
Adolf Rambold for the German company
Teekanne.
The
heat-sealed paper fiber tea bag was patented in 1930 by William Hermanson. The now-common rectangular tea bag was not invented until 1944. Prior to that, tea bags resembled small sacks.
Production
Teas
A broad variety of teas as well as other
infusion
Infusion is the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often called steeping). An inf ...
s, like herbal teas, are available in tea bags. Typically, tea bags use
fannings, the left-overs after larger leaf pieces are gathered for sale as loose tea, but some companies sell teabags containing whole-leaf tea.
Shapes and material

Traditionally, tea bags have been square or rectangular in shape. They are usually made of
filter paper
Filter paper is a semi-permeable paper barrier placed perpendicular to a liquid or air flow. It is used to separate fine solid particles from liquids or gases.
The raw materials are typically different pulp (paper), paper pulps. The pulp may be ...
, a blend of wood and
vegetable fibers related to paper found in milk and
coffee filters. The latter is
bleach
Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically t ...
ed pulp
abaca hemp, a
plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
banana plant grown for its fiber, mostly in the Philippines and Colombia. Some bags have a heat-sealable
thermoplastic
A thermoplastic, or thermosoftening plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling.
Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains as ...
such as
PVC or
polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene.
Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...
as a component fiber on the inner tea bag surface, making them not fully biodegradable. Some newer paper tea bags are made in a circular shape.
Tetrahedral tea bags were introduced by the PG Tips brand in 1997. They are typically made of
nylon
Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups.
Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...
, soilon (
PLA mesh made from corn starch), or
silk
Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...
. Nylon is non-
biodegradable
Biodegradation is the breakdown of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. It is generally assumed to be a natural process, which differentiates it from composting. Composting is a human-driven process in which biodegrada ...
, so silk is preferred by
environmentalist
Environmentalism is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of Green politics, g ...
s. PLA on the other hand is biodegradable, but is not compostable.
Empty tea bags are also available for consumers to fill with tea leaves themselves. These are typically open-ended pouches with long flaps. The pouch is filled with an appropriate quantity of leaf tea and the flap is closed into the pouch to retain the tea. Such tea bags combine the ease of use of a commercially produced tea bag with the wider tea choice and better quality control of loose leaf tea.
Plastics
In 2017, Mike Armitage, a gardener in
Wrexham
Wrexham ( ; ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in the North East Wales, north-east of Wales. It lies between the Cambrian Mountains, Welsh mountains and the lower River Dee, Wales, Dee Valley, near the England–Wales border, borde ...
, UK, found that tea bags left a plastic residue after being
compost
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by Decomposition, decomposing plant and food waste, recycling organic materials, and man ...
ed. He started a petition urging
Unilever
Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...
to remove plastic from bag production.
In January 2018,
Co-op Food
Co-op is a UK supermarket chain and the brand used for the food retail business of The Co-operative Group, one of the world's largest consumer co-operatives. As the UK's fifth largest food retailer, Co-op operates nearly 2,400 food stores. It ...
announced that they were removing plastic from their own brand 99 tea bags in conjunction with their supplier
Typhoo. In February 2018,
PG Tips
PG Tips is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom manufactured by Lipton Teas and Infusions.
Brand name
In the 1930s, Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in the tea market in the United Kingdom under the name Pre-Gestee, a variant of the original name "D ...
announced that their pyramid bags would now use
corn starch
Cornflour, cornstarch, maize starch, or corn starch (American English) is the starch derived from corn (maize) grain. The starch is obtained from the endosperm of the seed, kernel. Corn starch is a common food ingredient, often used to thick ...
adhesive in place of
polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene.
Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...
.
[
]Microplastics
Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics a ...
may be found in the tea meant for human consumption. A 2019 study showed that "steeping a single plastic teabag at brewing temperature () releases approximately 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into a single cup of the beverage". A 2021 study analyzed purportedly cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the chemical formula, formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of glycosidic bond, β(1→4) linked glucose, D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important s ...
tea bags and found that 15 of the 22 bags tested also contained polyester
Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...
, polyethylene
Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...
or polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene.
Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...
, which are known to shed microplastic fibers. Although cellulose is considered to be biodegradable, the plastic components are not and release microplastics to the environment when composted.
Recreational and practical applications
Decorative tea bags have become the basis for large collections and many collectors collect tea bags from around the world. Tea bag collector clubs are widely spread around the world and members consist of people interested in items related to teas. Online collector clubs often include catalogs of tea bags, as well as collection tracking tools. In addition, tea bag collectors often collect other tea-related items such as labels. These websites also provide forums for discussions and trade arrangements between collectors.
Teabag folding began in the Netherlands and is often credited to Tiny van der Plas. It is a form of origami
) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a ...
in which identical squares of patterned paper (cut from the front of tea bag wrappers) are folded, and then arranged in rosettes. These rosettes are usually used to decorate gift card
A gift card, also known as a gift certificate in North America, or gift voucher or gift token in the UK, is a prepaid stored-value card, stored-value money card, usually issued by a retailer or bank, to be used as an alternative to cash for pu ...
s, and it has become a popular craft in both the US and UK since 2000.
Soil scientists
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by restrict ...
have used standardized tea bags to measure the decomposition rate of organic materials in different soils.
See also
* 3-MCPD, a chemical compound that is carcinogenic, and can occur in some resin-reinforced tea bag materials
* Builder's tea, a variety of strong black tea typically prepared by steeping a tea bag in a mug
* Melitta 401 and Melitta 402 tea filters
* Tea leaf grading
* Tea strainer
A tea strainer is a type of strainer that is placed over or in a teacup to catch loose tea leaves. Despite the invention of the tea bag, it continues to be used widely as of 2025. Function
When tea is brewed in the traditional manner in a teapot, ...
, a small mesh utensil that can filter out stray tea leaves when whole-leaf tea is poured from a teapot
* Tetley, the British tea company that introduced tea bags in the United Kingdom in 1953
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tea Bag
Products introduced in 1904
American inventions
Bags
German inventions
Single-serve containers
Tea