The idea of an automated tea or coffee maker
was a dream for gunsmith frank smith in 1902.he developed a unit
that was basically a kettle and a methylated spirits burner
attached to an alarm clock. His gadget did work to some degree but
was far too complicated to become popular.
In 1937 the Goblin
company released their own teasmaid (also known as teasmade) that has now become very
famous. Developed by Brenner Thornton, Goblin pushed a huge
marketing campaign that included 250 in store demonstrators
that possibly made this product, and the coffee machine, what it
is today. it worked by electricity automatically heating an
element in a special kettle. when the water boiled it decanted
through a tube onto the tea in the pot, when the pot got heavy an
alarm and light when on to announce that the tea was ready.
Outside of the UK,
The Teasmaid never really took off, it was a great idea but perhaps with
the advent of automatic kettles, teabags and a growth in the popularity of
coffee saw the demise of the Teasmaid. Today Goblin Teasmaid's are much
sort after by antique and technology collectors.
Today the Goblin Brand are concentrating on the vacuum cleaner market,
while their once competitor in the teasmade business (Swan), still
produces some 30000 Swan Teasmade's every year for the UK market.
