TeaChat

I bought some green tea from a Chinese grocery; it is NOT good at all. I was wondering if there is something that I can do with it besides throwing it out. On this site here, there was something about using green tea for a facial.

Does anyone have a recipe that I can use to make a facial out of this terrible green tea? I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks, Floridahawk

A facial is a great idea! I like to make toner w/ my yucky greens: just infuse tea as you normally would, chill, and sweep over your face after cleansing with a cotton ball. Only lasts a coupla days, though.

Maybe you could add the leaves to a face mask (some kind of oatmeal-honey base might be nice)?

You could also try cooking with it, although if it's that bad you might not want to risk ruining a good dish. I'd imagine the same rule that applies to cooking with wine applies to cooking with tea: don't cook with tea you wouldn't drink!

Add mint, and brew it cold. Add sugar or honey. Ta-Da! moroccan mint!

Brew it and throw out the tea. Save the tea leaves and use them as fertilizer in your garden.

kemptor
you mentioned using tea leaves in your garden. i am very interested. do you just sprinkle them on top of the soil like fertilzer or something else?

i hate having to throw my used leaves away...

Yup. I don't have a garden, personally, but that's what my grandmother does with her used tea leaves. You just sprinkle it on top of the soil and it'll quickly decompose and incorporate itself into the soil.

I do this to my plants as well. I tend to pick certain teas to go with my special plants. I use this really black oolong on some of my favorites. The whole top layer is so dark that it adds a nice contrast. And they all do well.

I'd love it if someone could help define how adding tea leaves affects the Ph balance of the soil. I go through so much tea per day, and I'm wondering if my herb garden is still loving the extra treat.

I will say, that after adding tea leaves to my herb beds all last winter, my shiso (a.k.a. parilla) went wild--just loved it, as did my lemon balm. Then again, this stuff always does pretty well...

No kidding... My lemon balm has actually gotten pretty invasive and I had to attack it with a weedwhaker just to get it back to the corner where it belonged

Tea leaves are a great source of nitrogen, so your plants will love it. However, tea leaves are also acidic, so use them around your acid-loving plants or just add a bit of ground limestone once in a while to balance things out. It is generally not recommended to use on indoor potted plants as the acid and stuff in the leaves will build up in the pot and could possibly affect the plant. It just don't have a chance to leach out of a pot like it does outdoors in a flowerbed or garden

You might also consider using tea leaves if you do vermicomposting (Using red wriggler worms) My worms have actually ignored watermelon, bananas, white bread, coffee grounds and other favorites to go after used tea bags. Now that I use loose tea it's not so obvious, but when I collect leaves in one area of my worm bin the worms will congregate there.

For info and products check out:

http://www.happydranch.com/

Also, if you want to do a favor to your rhododendrons and azaleas you cn scatter the leaves around them. You can also do some interesting things with the colors of hydrangeas with tea and coffee wastes.