Tuesday, March 11, 2008

TO THE TUNE OF TEA TUESDAYS (#5)

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT LEFTOVER TEA
According to Atsushi Yasui and Family, "Even after teatime, used tea leaves can benefit your daily life." How so? Leave it to tea to have the ability to not only be good to you and good for you, but it can help you around the house.

This family says that tea leaves have an amazing deodorizing effect. "For example, you can burn dried, used, tea leaves as incense. The smoke will eliminate odors and make your room smell fresh." I have yet to do this, but I can't wait to try it. I should be doing something besides throwing all of those wonderful, "unfurled" tea leaves away all of the time. They say that "you can also put dried, used tea leaves in your shoes to remove bad odors." I need to save up every tea leaf now, just thinking of my sons' shoes, and dump a whole pail of them inside. Now if I didn't have a good enough reason to save tea leaves before, this would be the absolute most legitimate reason. The boys' shoes can KILL!! I will tout "tea leaf odor absorption" to the ends of the earth if this works in my boys' shoes! Anyway, it is also said that "odors on cooking equipment like cutting boards and cooking pots can be removed by wiping them with damp, used tea leaves." Hmmmm....

It is said that "wiping a steel pot or knife with tea leaves can prevent the item from rusting." This makes sense because of the chemical make-up of a tea leaf. "Tannin, an ingredient of green tea, makes an anti-rust coating on the surface of steel."

Tea leaves have an antiseptic and astringent effect. They say that "you can gargle with green tea to kill germs or use as a topical antiseptic or astringent to keep your skin beautiful and healthy." Now, the Japanese don't put sugar in their tea traditionally, so it won't do you any good, my good American people, to gargle with your tea and have added sugar to it. That might be properly termed a "cavity-causing rinse." And no wonder people from other countries have such beautiful skin!! You mean all I've needed to do all this time is gulp my tea down, relax in the tub or by the pool, and plaster my used tea leaves all over my face? Hey, they do it with cucumber and seaweed already!! I don't see why tea leaves shouldn't work. Or do I need to gulp down half a cup (again, no sugar added this particular time), and save the other half to pour on cotton balls to give my skin a little astringent wipe before putting whatever else I'm going to put on it, on it?

I tell you what, if we put these things to the test and they work, we've had answers right here at our fingertips all of this time (or could have) and didn't know what was good for us. Isn't that just like some of us. Well, I'm passing this on! Try some of them or all, and let me know what worked for you. Then we'll all know:)!

The tea-cha is out till next Tuesday. Catch me tomorrow for Wednesday Wisdom.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've also learned that if you put tea in spray bottle with a fine mister tip, and spray the inside of your house with it, that the tannin in the tea helps reduce allergy symptoms. So you know you have to try this Monica.