The teabag is 100 years old this year, but not everyone is celebrating.

The perforated paper sachet transformed a time-consuming afternoon ritual into a five-second quickie, and saved the tea industry by fulfilling the modern imperative for convenience and instant gratification. But many tea drinkers believe that the invention has also reduced one of the world’s greatest drinks to a beige, tannic concoction that neither refreshes nor satisfies.

Like many inventions, the teabag came about by accident. Struggling to cut costs, Thomas Sullivan, a New York coffee merchant who turned to tea, sent out samples in small silk sachets rather than as loose tea. His penny-pinching was misunderstood by his customers who failed to realise that they were supposed to cut open the sachet and empty its contents into a pot before brewing their tea.

The result was an instant success with American tea drinkers.

The silk bag was swiftly replaced with gauze and in 1930 William Hermanson, of the Boston-based Technical Papers Corporation, patented the heat-sealed paper fibre teabag.

But it took nearly half a century for the teabag to cross the Atlantic. The American invention was viewed with suspicion by British drinkers because the paper tag – attached to a short string to allow easy removal, but which often fell into the teacup or pot – had more flavour than the tea dust in the bag itself, drinkers complained.

The British also objected to the American practice of dunking the bag in a cup of lukewarm water, rather than using boiling water.

Joseph Tetley and Co, Britain’s largest tea-makers, introduced teabags in 1953, to a tepid response. In the early Sixties less than 3 per cent of tea sold in Britain came in teabags. The breakthrough came in 1964 with the introduction of the perforated bag. Today Tetley sells 200 million teabags a week, using enough perforated tissue to paper over 128 football pitches.

William Gorman, executive chairman of the UK Tea Council, said: “Without a doubt the teabag saved the tea industry because there is no way in our busy lifestyles today that we would have had the time or inclina-tion to make tea the old way.” The UK Tea Council may be grateful, but it is not having so much as a tea party to celebrate the saviour of the industry.

Sara Howe, Tetley’s spokeswoman, said that she believed Britain would be a different place without the teabag. “Persuading the British to change their tea-drinking habits from loose tea to teabags was never going to be easy,” she said.

“When Tetley introduced the teabag the adverts were quite simple: teabags were the new quick and easy way to make a delicious cup of tea for only one penny.

“It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without the teabag. Somehow getting up in time to measure the tea leaves, brew the tea, strain it and clear away the tea leaves from the sink afterwards does not have the same appeal.”

Today 96 per cent of the 130 million cups of tea drunk in Britain every day are made using teabags.

One of the last bag-free institutions is the Ritz Hotel in the West End of London, where 17 varieties of leaf tea are offered. Stephen Boxall, the general manager of the Ritz, said: “It’s loose-leaf tea only here. Since we famously uphold many traditions in our historic hotel, so we respect the time-honoured distinctions of traditional English afternoon tea service. That said, may I take this opportunity on behalf of us all at the Ritz to congratulate the teabag on its 100th birthday and to wish it many more years of happy brewing.”

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Drinks

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• Top Ten most searched for recipes
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winning menus
• Gin and pomegranate jellies