Tea Bag

Submitted by Al Connor

My first encounter with a “Tea Bag” was in the mid fifties, my Brother and I were travelling from Shannon to Toronto via New York and we arrived at the international Airport very early in the morning, not as yet having had breakfast and feeling hungary we proceeded to the café to get something to eat.
We ordered Bacon, Egg, Sausage etc, and tea, all of which arrived very promptly, except the tea that is, you see the custom was she brought the menu first thing.

Well the meal came and we tucked into it with great gusto and then called for the tea, and what a surprise we got, a pot of lukewarm water and two cups each with a whiteish looking bag thing in it, and a string hanging over the side of the cup with a small label at the end, no milk or sugar, but with a slice of lemon, this was the first time we really knew what the expression “Dishwater” meant.

Fast forward several years and I had settled down to living and working in Toronto having brought my wife and young family out to share in the good life.
We made many friends amongst them a couple from a small village in the “backwoods” of rural Ireland.

It was customary for this couple to send a parcel home to Ireland every so often and in one of these parcel’s they included a packet of tea bag’s for the folks back home to try, again as was the custom to arrange a phone call home, no small undertaking in those days, especially at Christmas time, well the phone call having taken place and all the usual gossip and news exchanged it was time to enquire about the most recent parcel “ and by the way how did they like the tea”.
“Oh it was very good”, came the reply and then after a slight pause, “but it was an awful nuisance having to cut open each individual packet”.


Al Connor – June 2008