 Patented in the UK in 1810, this method of preservation was not used extensively for soft drinks until the pull tab version was patented in the USA in 1963

In 1981, the first canned tea product, unsweetened oolong, was introduced in Japan by Ito En.The introduction very quickly led to more than one hundred variations, offered both in cans and in bottles.The oolong variety was well suited as the canned tea proved stable even at temperatures up to 50° - 60 °C in vending machines.