14 Unexpected Uses For Tea Bags

14 Uses For Tea Bags: Make Use of The Tea Bag Mountain in Your Cupboard!

Did you know that there are many uses for tea bags outside of the obvious?

Do you have a mountain of mysterious tea bags in your cupboard? If you’ve no idea what to do with:

Don’t throw them away! There are so many ways you can use tea around the house, in the garden, for your health and even in cooking or baking.

Here are fourteen great uses for teabags:

Soak Your Feet: Add used tea bags to warm water and soak your feet to neutralize foot odors, soften calluses, and nourish your skin.
An Antioxidant Bath: Because tea leaves contain antioxidants, bathing in warm water steeped with pre-brewed
tea bags is great for your skin. Either hang the used bags over the faucet and let the water run through them as you fill your bath, or drop the bags directly into the water to create a nourishing tea bath. Use teas like Jasmine or Chamomile for a fragrant experience.
Soothe sunburned skin: What can you do when you forget to use sunscreen and have to pay the price with a painful burn? A few wet tea bags applied to the affected skin will take out the sting. This works well for other types of minor burns too. If the sunburn is too widespread to treat this way, put some tea bags in your bathwater and soak your whole body in the tub.

Soothing Mouthwash: To ease toothache or other mouth pain, rinse your mouth with a cup of warm peppermint tea mixed with a pinch or two of salt. Peppermint is an antiseptic and contains menthol, which alleviates pain on contact with skin surfaces. Teas that contain cloves and/or star anise would also work well. Some people use tea bags after tooth extraction to help stop bleeding.

Relieve Tired Eyes: Revitalize tired, achy, or puffy eyes. Soak two tea bags in warm water and place them over your closed eyes for 20 minutes. The tannins in the tea act to reduce puffiness and soothe tired eyes.

Add Flavor To Pasta and Grains: A super tasty addition to our uses for tea bags blog: Add a new or used tea bag to flavor rice, pasta, quinoa or couscous. Some delicious ideas to get you started: try jasmine or chamomile tea with rice, green tea with pasta, chai or cinnamon spice tea with oatmeal.
Freeze It: Brew a pot of mint, lemon or ginger tea and freeze it in ice cube trays. Add to water, juice or smoothies. Try lemonade with ginger tea or pineapple juice with mint tea.
Add Ground Tea To Baked Goods: Muffins, cookies, cakes, breads and scones pair with tea flavors well, especially when the recipe is fairly plain. Try this Chai Muffin Recipe or this Earl Grey Tea Cookie Recipe.
Merge Your Greens: Add green tea leaves to leafy greens when cooking. The fresh, earthy flavors of kale, chard and spinach are all enhanced by a sprinkling of green tea.
Poach Fish In Tea: Poach salmon and other fish in citrus-flavored white teas for a tender, exotic flavor. Teas are also great for poaching fruit: pears, apples, peaches and plums.

Add it to your potted plants: A few used teabags in the bottom of a planter can help the soil retain water and add valuable nutrients.
Use an old teabag as a seed starter: Tea bags are the perfect place to put your seedlings. Why? Because they make great plant food. And because they have been dunked in boiling water, they are sterile, so no bugs or diseases can get to your sapling, or young plant. Instructions on how to grow a tea bag garden here.
Add Nutrients To Your Garden: Instead of throwing away your old tea bags into the garbage or compost, consider adding them to a jar of water kept in the fridge. Use the resulting weak tea to water your plants and protect them from fungal infections. Alternately, open up used tea bags and sprinkle the damp leaves around the base of your plants to fertilize the soil and deter garden pests like mice. Afterwards be sure to add them to your compost pile for a boost of nutrients. Just remember to remove the metal staple if your tea bags are the kind that have them

Degrease Dirty Dishes: Soak your dishes in warm water with a couple of used tea bags to break up grease without the application of harsh chemicals. The tea will also help to loosen any stuck on food and save you from the endless scrubbing.

Teabags can help deodorize shoes. Sweat thrives in wet environments and teabags are absorbent while also leaving a fresh scent behind.

Did you know that most teabags on the market contain plastic that is not recyclable or biodegradable, even the paper teabags?

One cup from a single plastic tea bag can contain up to billions of microplastic and nanoplastic particles– gross, right?

teapigs, uses Plant Based Tea Temples and Sustainable Packaging:

Made from corn starch
Labels made with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) paper
Inks on cartons are vegetable based
Clear inner bags made from Natureflex (renewable wood pulp) that is fully compostable.
The tea is Rainforest Alliance certified and sourced through Ethical Tea Partnership.

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