Instant tea in United States history

During the early 20th century, tearooms became common in many large cities in the United States. These were largely owned, operated and frequented by women, who saw these establishments as good alternatives to the saloons when men mainly congregated.

However, these tearooms went out of fashion and largely disappeared during the 1920s. Tea reemerged as an important beverage after World War II, Lipton introduced the four-sided tea bag in 1952, and instant tea came out five years later.

Advances in processing technology allowed the development of instant tea, which was first produced in England in 1940, with commercial production in the United States beginning in 1950.

The demand in the United States is for instant teas soluble in cold water, because it is iced tea which is the real basis for the success of instant tea in that country. Production and consumption in the United States is greater than in the rest of the world.

The methods used for instant tea production have been protected by patents, and the patents published up to 1969 have been reviewed in 1977. The United States has now become the world’s second largest importer of tea. By the 1990s, almost one hundred million tons were being used each year in teabags or processed into instant tea.

Instant tea in United States history

 

Early history of US aircraft carrier

On November 14, 1910 Curtis Aircraft’s chief test pilot Eugene Ely made the first takeoff from a ship, launching a Curtiss Pusher from a modified wooden deck affixed to the scout cruiser USS Birmingham, which was anchored in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Two months later on January 18, 1911 Ely landing his Curtiss aircraft on a 127x32 ft wooden platform mounted to the deck of the armoured cruiser USS Pennsylvania, marking the frost use of a tailhook landing system.

Historians commonly agree that the first American aircraft carrier was the USS Langley (commissioned on March 20, 1922) a collier converted for the US Navy by having a platform built over the main deck to allow fixed-wing aircraft to land on and launch from the ship while at sea.

Technically, the USS Langley can be considered the first American fixed wing aircraft carrier. The first recorded form of an aircraft carrier came many years before the modifications of the Langley, and been many years before the aircraft carriers used during the Civil War.

USS Langley was the test tube for the Navy’s carrier aviation program and would be so until by the Saratonga and Lexington. USS Langley career spanned fifteen years until elected for a more mundane role.

As the technology matured and the US navy became more familiar and confident with carrier operation in the 1930s, the carrier took on an important role in the fleet. It had spent considerable time during the pre-war in mastering the basics of carrier operations. Going into the war US possessed a number of large carriers and almost all of these saw action against the Japanese. The Yorktown class was a truly excellent design which demontrated the US navy’s emphasis on ships that could carry a large air group, thus giving the ship maximum offensive fighting power.
Early history of US aircraft carrier