Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
  • B65D—CONTAINERS FOR STORAGE OR TRANSPORT OF ARTICLES OR MATERIALS, e.g. BAGS, BARRELS, BOTTLES, BOXES, CANS, CARTONS, CRATES, DRUMS, JARS, TANKS, HOPPERS, FORWARDING CONTAINERS; ACCESSORIES, CLOSURES, OR FITTINGS THEREFOR; PACKAGING ELEMENTS; PACKAGES
  • B65D85/00—Containers, packaging elements or packages, specially adapted for particular articles or materials
  • B65D85/70—Containers, packaging elements or packages, specially adapted for particular articles or materials for materials not otherwise provided for
  • B65D85/804—Disposable containers or packages with contents which are mixed, infused or dissolved in situ, i.e. without having been previously removed from the package
  • B65D85/808—Disposable containers or packages with contents which are mixed, infused or dissolved in situ, i.e. without having been previously removed from the package for immersion in the liquid to release part or all of their contents, e.g. tea bags
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
  • B65B—MACHINES, APPARATUS OR DEVICES FOR, OR METHODS OF, PACKAGING ARTICLES OR MATERIALS; UNPACKING
  • B65B29/00—Packaging of materials presenting special problems
  • B65B29/02—Packaging of substances, e.g. tea, which are intended to be infused in the package
  • B65B29/028—Packaging of substances, e.g. tea, which are intended to be infused in the package packaging infusion material into filter bags
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
  • B65D—CONTAINERS FOR STORAGE OR TRANSPORT OF ARTICLES OR MATERIALS, e.g. BAGS, BARRELS, BOTTLES, BOXES, CANS, CARTONS, CRATES, DRUMS, JARS, TANKS, HOPPERS, FORWARDING CONTAINERS; ACCESSORIES, CLOSURES, OR FITTINGS THEREFOR; PACKAGING ELEMENTS; PACKAGES
  • B65D69/00—Articles joined together for convenience of storage or transport without the use of packaging elements
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
  • B65B—MACHINES, APPARATUS OR DEVICES FOR, OR METHODS OF, PACKAGING ARTICLES OR MATERIALS; UNPACKING
  • B65B2220/00—Specific aspects of the packaging operation
  • B65B2220/16—Packaging contents into primary and secondary packaging

Definitions

• This invention relates to the packaging of tea bags which are small sachets of a material such a permeable tissue paper, each sachet containing a portion of tea, so that in the use of same, a liquid medium such as hot water can pass into and through the sachet thereby to mix with the tea in order to produce the beverage.
• tea bags of this nature are extremely well known and are widely used, and typically the single tea bag embodies sufficient tea for making one or two cups of the beverage.
• the tea bags may be used in teapots, or more frequently they are used on a "one cup” basis wherein a single tea bag is placed in a beverage drinking vessel such as a cup which is then filled with hot water in order to produce the beverage.
• IMA C50 and IMA C51 The world leader in the manufacture of machines for producing these tea bags at these speeds is an Italian company by the name of IMA who over the years have produced two types of tea bag manufacturing machines namely an IMA C50 and an IMA C51.
• Each of these machines produces tea bags in pairs by feeding a first permeable paper web horizontally in synchronism with the dropping onto the web in pairs of doses of tea so that two rows of tea doses, of which each dose is isolated on the web, extend longitudinally of the web.
• the second web is placed over the first web in order to cover the doses, and then the thus formed two web structure is passed between a first pair or rollers to form a laminating step whereby the webs are sealed together in order to define the individual sachets.
• the sachets then move to a cutting station whereat the laminated webs are cut transversely to form discrete pairs of tea bags, and the webs are also perforated longitudinally, so that a perforation seam is formed between each pair of tea bags.
• This is provided so that the tea bags of each pair can be separated by the user readily and reliably, but as the pairs of tea bags emerge from the machine, there remain interconnected along the line of the perforation.
• the machine bushes the pairs of tea bags into a magazine to form stacks, and the stacks of a predetermined number are pushed from the magazine into for example a carton in which the tea bags are sold.
• the tea bags in pairs could be packaged in wrappings, in particular wrappings of foil seal material by a flow wrap method in order to provide a form of pillow pack containing stacks of tea bags, and this arrangement is outlined in our British patent No 2228912.
• the machines described above might be modified in order to produce round tea bags instead of the traditional square or rectangular tea bags which had been produced for many years.
• a modified IMA machine as described above.
• the present invention is concerned with the packaging of stacks or round tea bags, and in this connection the expression "round” is intended to mean tea bags having a periphery at least a portion of which is curved or having an edge portion which may be straight but which is of less length than the overall length of the tea bag in the same direction as that edge.
• round tea bags are produced on the high speed machinery described but are grouped in pairs in tangential fashion, and are left interconnected by a severable web portion where the tea bags are tangential.
• Tea bags according to the present invention are provided in that the cutters of the IMA production machine are suitably modified so as to define in effect a dumb bell shape, the centre portion of the dumb bell defining the connecting web portion for the tea bag pairs.
• the sealing section of the machine will have its rollers also appropriately profiled so as to seal the web in a dumb bell configuration to define the two tea bags which will be interconnected.
• Each pair of tea bags which is cut from the web forms a unit which is moved into the magazine, and the stacks made up by a multiplicity of these units will be capable of being moved reliably and predictably by a pusher from the magazine into either a packaging carton, or into a conveying channel to enable the stacks to be passed to a flow wrap machine to be wrapped with flow wrap material in a manner similar to that described in either of our patent No 2228912.
• Fig. 1 is a plan view of conventional round tea bag
• Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing how the round tea bags of Fig. 1 are conventionally packaged in a carton;
• Fig. 3 is a perspective view illustrating the method and manufacture of the round tea bags of Fig. 1;
• Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 3, but showing how the equipment is modified in order to produce tea bags according to the present invention, and by the method and apparatus according to the invention;
• Fig. 5 is a view similar to Fig. 1, but showing tea bags according to the invention.
• Fig. 6 shows a stack of tea bags each as shown in Fig. 5;
• Fig. 7 shows how the stacks of tea bags shown in Fig. 6 are packaged in a carton by way of comparison with the illustration of Fig. 2.
• a conventional tea bag 10 is shown and it will be seen to be of circular configuration. It is made up of two layers of filter paper sealed together in the peripheral region 12, to define a cavity 16 in which the dose 16 of tea is contained.
• the function and operation of these tea bags is extremely well known and will not be described further.
• Fig. 2 shows how a plurality of the bags 10 are packaged in a carton 18 which is closable by a lid 20.
• the tea bags 10 are strewn randomly throughout the carton, and present in fact to the user a rather unsightly appearance.
• the looseness of the bags also causes some of the tea 16 to permeate through the filter paper, and tea dust gathers in the carton and has to be disposed of.
• a first web 22 of the filter paper is fed under a guide roller 24, to define a horizontal reach on which are placed the doses of tea 16 in parallel rows and at spaced intervals so that the doses 16 are discretly arranged.
• a second web 26 is applied over the first web in order to trap the doses 16 between the webs.
• Web 26 passes round a sealing roller 28 having cavities 30 of circular form to define the tea bags 10 in the two webs 22 and 26 as shown. Sealing is effected by heat to provide the sealed borders 12.
• the laminated webs travel as indicated by arrow 30 in a horizontal direction, they arrive at a pair of cutting rollers 32 and 34 of which at least one is recessed to provide circular recesses 36 surrounded by cutting edges so that the individual tea bags 10 are cut from the web as shown.
• the stack pairs are pushed as indicated by arrow 48 by an appropriate pushing mechanism laterally of the direction 30, until they are presented into or over the packaging carton 18.
• the stack pair 50, 52 is positioned over the carton 18, and the two stacks are then pushed downwardly as indicated by arrow 54 into the carton 18.
• This process is carried out repeatedly and at high speed so that in fact the tea bags in the order of 2,000 a minute are produced.
• the cartons 18 are fed automatically when full to a dispatch location, and may be automatically closed during this process.
• Fig. 5 shows a pair of tea bags 10A and 10B each of similar construction to that shown in Fig. 1, but which are connected by a tag IOC of the paper material so that the tea bags 10A and 10B form a pair each of which contributes to the others stability when the bags are produced in this way.
• Fig. 6 shows two pairs of stacks of tea bags of which the respective pairs are connected by the tags IOC, and the inherent stability of the assembly can be ascertained from the drawing. There will be less tendency for individual tea bags to drift from the stack, and for the stacks to fall over.
• the tea bags can either be packaged directly into cartons such as carton 18, where they will be arranged for example as shown in Fig. 7, and will remain in stacks presenting a neat appearance as compared to the arrangement shown in Fig. 2, or alternatively the pairs of tea bags in stacks can be passed directly to the flow wrap machine as described in our patent No 2271549 and as illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 4.
• the apparatus is modified in order to produce pairs of tea bags as shown in Fig. 5, and the modifications are in connection with the sealing roller 28 and the cutting rollers 32 and 34 insofar as instead of providing discrete recesses such as 30 and 36, dumb bell shaped recesses 30A and 36A are provided so as to leave the tag IOC connecting the tea bag pairs.
• Fig. 4 shows that the stacks of tea bag pairs are fed to a flow wrapping position 60 at which flow wrapping material 62 is applied to each pair of stacks, in a manner similar to that disclosed in our patent No 2228912 for the flow wrapping of stacks of rectangular tea bags.
• the invention therefore provides pairs of round tea bags which are tagged together and can provide stacks which can be effectively handled for packaging in cartons on the one hand, or for packaging in flow wrap on the other hand.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Packages (AREA)

Priority Applications (2)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=10769102

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (4)

Cited By (4)

Citations (4)

• 1995
  • 1995-02-03 GB GBGB9502209.1A patent/GB9502209D0/en active Pending
• 1996
  • 1996-01-26 WO PCT/GB1996/000170 patent/WO1996023695A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1996-01-26 AU AU44929/96A patent/AU4492996A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1996-01-26 EP EP96901053A patent/EP0807055A1/de not_active Ceased

Patent Citations (4)

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