The teabag has been around for a while. Over a century now, though the exact figure varies, depending on which accounts you believe. In any event, teabags aren’t going away anytime soon and, as you might have guessed, have inspired a number of creative inventors to try out some offbeat variations on the theme. I covered a few of these here and now it’s time to look at a few more.

First up, the Two Part Tea Bag, which was patented about a decade ago. Though it’s hard to believe that no one thought of this before. Unlike many offbeat inventions this one is actually rather clever and may even be potentially useful. As the name suggests, the gadget consists of two bags, one of which consists of tea and the other a “flavoring material.” As the description notes, they “are detachably connected together so that they can be selectively steeped together or separately.”

There are many ways to deal with the problem of the squishy, messy, used teabag when you’re finished with it, and I’ve seen a number of them that resemble the Combination Mug With Integral Tea Bag Receptacle. But given that it was patented in 1989, it’s likely that it was one of the earlier efforts along these lines. As the patent says, “A transverse receptacle is formed into the upper portion of a mug, which slot opens up into the mug. A tea bag which has been dipped into hot water may be slid by the string attached to the tea bag from the hot water into the transverse receptacle where it can rest until it needs to be subsequently reused or eventually discarded.”

Patents aren’t always written in the most user friendly language – or maybe it’s just me. It probably doesn’t help when the text is translated from another language, as is the case with this one for a Tea-Bag String Having Functions of Indicating Soaking Condition. As nearly as I can tell the teabag string changes color for some reason or another depending on that is going on with the tea. Which might be a useful invention that we need but, without fully understanding it, I couldn’t swear to it.

Finally, from 1992, the Holder for Multiple String Suspended Tea Bags seems to be a device that allows one to steep a number of teabags at one time. Again, the text of the patent is a little bit tricky, and I can’t imagine how or why you’d use such a gadget, but apparently someone thought there would be a use for it.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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