Don’t Throw Your Used Tea Bags Away! Here are Ingenious Ways to Reuse Teabags!

Vanny Sanclaria
5 min readSep 2, 2022

Check your watch. It says three hours past 12 noon.

It’s time for your afternoon tea. You headed to your kitchen cupboard and reached for your favorite teacup, pour in boiling hot water, and dropped a bag of your favorite tea inside. After a couple of minutes, you’re tea is finally infused and you are now headed to your porch or sunroom to enjoy your beverage.

I understand that you want to savor your tea right away but before you chuck you soggy — and now used tea bag inside the bin, prevent yourself and set aside it first.

More than just a healthy drink, there are other ways you could reuse your tea bags!

Read on through the article to find out more!

Flavor Your Rice

As a person who grew up eating rice, this is a surprising and interesting hack for me. Simply put your used tea bag inside your pot and let it boil until cooked. The tea will infused your rice with the subtle flavor that will surprise your family and guests.

Refresh Your Carpets

Carpets can smell a bit funky because of heavy foot traffic and your furry companions. To deodorize your carpet, simply dry out your used tea bags and sprinkle the bit on your carpet and let it sit for a couple of minutes before vacuuming.

For a more powerful deodorizing action, pair your tea bits with baking soda!

Neutralize Garbage Odor

Tea is not only good in eliminating the funky smell of your carpets, but your garbage bins as well! Simply dry out your used tea bags and put them at the bottom inside of your bin and you’ll be saying goodbye to that pungent garbage odor!

Rejuvenate Your Skin

Do you know that you can also use your tea bags as a beauty exfoliator? Make a DIY facial scrub by ripping open your used tea bags and pouring the contents into a clean bowl. Add in at one teaspoon of honey and mix.

Apply mixture on your face and lightly massage in small, circular motions. Rinse well for a fresh and rejuvenated skin!

While a tea types can be used as a scrub, green teas are the best when it comes to hydrating your skin!

Less Puffy Eyes

Let’s add another beauty hack!

Treat the dark circles or your puffy eyes with tea! Simply put your used tea bag inside the refrigerator to cool down. After a few minutes, hold them on your eyes and let it perform magic by shrinking the blood vessels around your eyes! You’ll wake up to a less puffy eyes!

Soothe a sunburn

It’s such a bummer when you have sunburn — it’s red, painful, itchy, and a great way to ruin a perfect summer vacation. Good thing is that your used tea bags is there to lighten up the mood — and the pain on your skin.

Simply dab your moist tea bags on the affected area and let it dry off — don’t wipe it away! Reapply as necessary once it’s dry so your skin can continue absorbing the compounds found in tea that will help rebuild your skin tissue.

Continue doing this method until you say good bye to those sunburns!

Cool tip: this hack also works in insect bites!

Relieve Swollen Gums

I bet this is the first time you heard about this hack, well, at least for me! If you’ve been dealing with painful, swollen gums lately then it’s time to reach out to your packets of tea! Put a cool, wet tea bag in the swollen areas of the gums and tooth for five minutes.

Clean messy pans

Having a hard time getting rid of the grease and crusty mess at the bottom of your pan? If all that scrubbing doesn’t make that much of a difference then it’s time to get your used tea bag into action. Fill your pots and pans with hot water and drop it in your used tea bag. Let it soak overnight.

The tannins found in tea will help loosen up all the grease, making washing your pots and pans a breeze!

Marinate Meats

If this hack came out as a surprise for you, I understand. For a change of flavor into your meat and poultry, chip in two used tea bags, a cup of water, and your meat inside a zip lock bag and marinate it overnight!

Patch up the Lawn

A lawn with lots of bald spots isn’t really a sight you want to see. To help even out the grass in your lawn, rip open your used tea bag and pour it on the soil with grass seed in it.

Make that Wood Furniture Shine

Restore the shine and luster of your wooden furniture by reinfusing used tea bags to make weak tea. Wipe it to your wooden furniture using a soft rag or microfiber cloth to welcome that bright shine!

Start a Fire!

And no, I don’t mean setting your house on fire — don’t go setting properties on fire! If you happen to be in a camping trip and is having a hard time starting your campfire, it’s time to get your tea bags in action!

Squeeze out the water from your used tea bags — make sure they are dry! Next, dip the tea bags in melted wax before wrapping them in a parchment paper. The moment the wax hardens, then they’re ready to use!

Start firing up your campfires with this simple trick!

Twice the bath time fun!

Why use pricy bath salts when you can use tea bags instead? They work wonders too like your pricey bath bombs and salts! Simply pop in a couple of bags on your next bath session for a classy, upgraded bath!

Our good friend surprisingly has a lot of uses aside from being a healthy afternoon beverage. So, the next time you infused some, make sure not to throw away those wet tea bags. Who knows, you might be needed them for your next household cleaning operation or the next time you pamper yourself!

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