In 1901, in Milwaukee, United States, Roberta C. Lawson and Mary McLaren recorded the first patent of tea bags.
The idea was to avoid waste and preserve the product, allowing the customer to enjoy it fresher. The bag where the leaves were stored was made in the same way we see today, of cotton, without affecting the taste of the drink. Despite this, the invention was not an immediate commercial success. In fact, it took time, almost 10 years.
In 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a tea importer, began distributing small individual silk compartments filled with aromatic leaves as samples to his customers.
There is no evidence that Thomas appropriated Roberta and Mary's idea, nor that he knew of the patent. Nor is it known about the reasons why Thomas' initiative outweighed the pioneering efforts of the two.
The Queen's Land, where it is common to stop everything at 5 pm to contemplate the rain with a delicious cup of Lady Grey, only discovered the tea bags in the 1950s. At the time, the novelty was well accepted by most English people, except for the grannies.
Most of them did not approve of the invention. The reason? They didn't understand what it was for. Many of them bought the tea bags, cut their surface and stored the tea in a container. When preparing the tea, they would add a teaspoonful to the cups without knowing that the same amount was already separated in the tea bags. They didn't know how they worked, and worse: they didn't even know that they didn't know.
This explains how the human mind works.
Think about the alphabet: you know that you know the alphabet, right? Now think about splitting an atom without fission: unless you are an Einstein, chances are, you don't know how to do it. Therefore, you know that you don't know.
What is tremendously frightening is that we don't know what we don't know. Look at a 6-month-old baby: he knows that he has to cry when he is hungry, he knows that he has to open his mouth to feed himself, but he doesn't know what an alphabet is, what letters are, what speech is, what sound is, simply because none of this has crossed his mind.
Here we come to the question: How many things don't even cross our minds? In how many situations do we think exactly like a baby?
Important things, things that exist and we don't know about, things that we can find on Google and don't even know how to search for.
Think about what you do: what do you know about it and what don't you know?
Now take a deep breath and reflect: there are many things you don't know that you don't know about your business.
How do you feel?
Would you like some tea?