From the first thing that you ask to your house guests to the first thing you search for every evening to consume with cookies or biscuits, tea has a special place in the hearts of every individual. No matter how many trends, or competitive beverage categories come and go, tea is a constant that one cannot live without. As we celebrate International Tea Day today, here’s a quick look at how this most loved beverage can be recycled and reused even after brewing that cuppa.
Be it home décor, home cleaning or even food flavouring, tea has a place in all of these.
Tea leaves act as a natural deodorant. Instead of spending a lot of money on buying chemical ones, take a handful of used tea leaves and dry them well. You can place them in muslin cloth and tie the mouth tightly so that there is no spillage. Then place them in your wardrobes, shoes, refrigerators etc. It absorbs all the musty and damp smell and leaves the surrounding smelling fresh and cleaner. This hack works really well, especially during the monsoons, when the want of a hot beverage and the mushy dampness both increase.
Often you would notice that the kitchen sink or the tiles around it develop a brown stain. Similar stains can be noticed in bathrooms and verandas. These not only destroy the aesthetics but also start giving off odours after a while. To get rid of these, you can make a home –made cleaning scrub by missing baking soda and dried tea leaves.
Remember how tea today can be flavoured. Be it green tea or herbal infusions, there’s a light aroma to it. Have you thought of taking this aroma beyond your tea cups to the dishes on your plates? While you are preparing broth, rice or soups, leftover green or herbal tea can be added to the water. Sometimes, you can entirely do away with water and use the tea as the base of the liquid. Moreover, you can infuse tea flavour to your smoked items like meat, fish or chicken. For this, you have to choose the infused tea carefully so that the flavour pairing sits right.
Tea can be used for art in many ways. Of late, there has been a rise in tea art where one uses the leftover tea brew to make art. The same brew is cleverly used in different strokes and shades to make a complete artwork. Moreover, using this principle, tea brew is used to stain fabric and paper which, in turn, gives rise to the tea stained handmade papers, tea-stained apparels, and more. Dried tea leaves can sometimes be used to add aroma and aesthetics to handmade body soaps or candles.
Tea extracts and remnants have been used for skincare for a long time. Cool tea bags are often used to reduce morning puffiness and under-eye bagginess. Tea leaves are mixed with honey or curd and used as an exfoliator to remove dead skin cells from the body. Moreover, black tea brews are used to wash your hair to add extra shine and volume.
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