When was the tea strainer invented

In , William Sullivan, a New York tea merchant, packaged his loose tea leaves in small silk and later muslim sachet bags, his clients were unsure about what to do with the bags.

They poured hot water over them, steeping the tea leaves, and so the disposable tea bag was invented. Sullivan unwittingly changed the course of how one makes tea, although true aficionados continue to insist on steeping loose leaves in a pot.

Whether you obtain one beautiful sterling silver strainer, or start a stylish collection of antique strainers, using them will add a sense of history and whimsy to your tea. You can see my current collection offered for sale here: Collect Sterling Tea Strainers.

To read more about tea, you can click on the photographs below to read some of my past posts on tea. Treasures that make your home fresh, beautiful, inspirational and uniquely yours. Visit our shop FrenchGardenHouse. Thank you for the most interesting information about the tea strainers. I have a couple of different types but nothing as elegant as a sterling one. These silver tea strainers are stunning.

Pure elegance and incredible attention to detail. To think that such little pieces of art were used to strain tea leaves. How genius. I love to collect them as well. Who invented the strainer? What is the difference between an English tea strainer and a regular tea strainer? What are the uses of strainer? How do you separate tea leaves from tea?

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What process could you use to separate lemon seeds from lemon juice in a mixture? Did thomas Sullivan invented the tea bags?

Silver Canteens. Engagement Rings. Signet Rings. History of the Tea Strainers What is a tea strainer? Types of Tea Strainers Loose tea leaves are brewed in a teapot , and then before serving into the teacups, a tea strainer is placed on top of the cups, preventing the leaves from going into the cup.

History of the Tea Strainer It has been suggested that the bamboo tea strainer was the first tea strainer, and then later evolved into porcelain, silicon, linen, stainless steel, and sterling silver models. View Details.

View our collection of Silver Tea Strainers. Read More. Quick View. About Us. Andrew Campbell started trading in antiques during the s. Initially, Andrew lived in the South of England, travelling the country, searching for items of silver to buy. Andrew sold these items at various London markets and antique fairs.

This common approach to serving tea with smaller tea leaves required a solution to avoid ending up with a cup, and mouth, full of tea leaves. The obvious solution was a strainer basket. In the Victorian era, tea strainer baskets, similar to those still used in tea parlors today, were made to sit on top of the cup to capture the leaves when pouring the tea from a tea pot into the individual cups.

Another solution was a tea-removing device called a mote spoon. Mote spoons act as search and rescue spoons to remove tea leaves from individual teacups. The tea would be brewed loose in the teapot, so any tea that ended up in the cup could be removed with a long handled spoon with holes in the spoon to remove rogue tea leaves and keep the steeped water in the cup.

The handle also helped keep the teapot spout free of leaves and could help unclog any leaves trapped when pouring. Stainless steel tea strainers and tea infusers gained popularity in the late 19th century. Big name tea strainer producers, such as Tiffany and Gorham, could use fine silver to create quality, heavy, and sturdy strainers, for those who could afford it. There were many varieties of strainers at that time, but it was more likely that smaller designers who could not afford to mass-produce these quality strainers out of silver made them into unique shapes to attract consumers with lighter wallets.

And borne was the tea strainer we are accustomed to today.