michael adams wrote:
"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
[...]
Not "are" - "were". That ceased to be relevant long ago, when
teabags started to dominate the market and tea stopped being
imported in chests.

...

I think you'll find that products that are popular with
manufacturers, quite often come to dominate the market,
if only because they attract the largest marketing effort.

This can be true: I think of prepacked goods, which quite often
confer a disadvantage on the customer. But it clearly isn't always
true.

Or are you suggesting that the popularity of tea bags is
due solely to public demand ?
[...]

I think he'd be right if that's what he's suggesting. Consider what a
bad reputation they had to start with: people very often used teabags
for the family and loose tea for visitors. There must have been a
considerable advantage to overcome that. The advantage is simplicity
of preparation and cleaning up: I use only leaf tea, but even with
that early example my children have preferred bags ever since they
started making their own tea. The supermarket shelves tell their own
tale, too: people are clearly buying more of the bags even when it's
the same tea -- my own favourite brand, for example, is now
available, if at all, in my local supermarkets _only_ in bag form,
and I have to remember to get it when I'm in London.

--
Mike.