The Accidental Inventions That We’re All Grateful For

If you are a tea drinker, you may have wondered who first had the idea to put tea leaves in a little bag you could use for brewing your tea without getting the leaves everywhere. And the answer is: nobody! It was a total accident.

In the early 1900s, a tea importer named Thomas Sullivan began packaging his teas in little silk bags. Somehow his customers figured out that they could simply dunk the whole bag in the water and get the same effect as they would with loose tea leaves. And the drinking of tea changed forever!