The tea bag was accidentally invented by a tea importer named Thomas Sullivan in 1908. To minimize the cost of transporting tea samples to customers, Sullivan sent the tea in small silk bags instead of the more expensive tin cans. The recipients mistakenly believed they were meant to be dunked and soon Sullivan was inundated with orders for his Tea Bags.
This method of brewing tea soon became popular, and by the 1920s, tea bags were being mass produced in the United States. Silk was replaced with gauze, then later paper
