Recently, in preparation for a talk about the benefits of tea, I discovered several uses for spent leaves:

Rub a frying pan with damp tea leaves to remove the smell of fish, garlic or onion.

Scatter dried leaves on houseplants and water them with cold tea. Acts as fertilizer.

Burn dried tea leaves to drive off mosquitoes.

In China [...]

It was you who tutored
Me on the art of tea making;
So tender your fingers moved,
Picking the dried curled
Light, dark greenish pieces,
Sprinkling them over
The whizzing little pot,
An elegant Jing De Zhen                                        
That stood with its
Little spout spewing
Vapors that soon invaded
Our nostrils with the
Mind refreshing,
Sweet fragrance of pricey tea.
Your every graceful step
Doing a dance in my mind [...]

I saw an interesting article today called “Don't drink your calories”. Although the article tends to generalize about coffee and tea, they do say that “Green tea has been discovered to have terrific health benefits, less caffeine, and to boost your metabolism, helping you to burn fat. You can even drink it before you go [...]

Any of you who follow the research on tea know that one of the ongoing controversies has been the question of how tea can have such powerful health effects when we know that there are always such low concentrations of polyphenols that show up in the blood stream after consumption. It is a real conundrum [...]

Thus, seven years after Mr. Pepys drank his first cup of tea, Mrs. Pepys enjoyed a similar experience. Quoth his Diary of 1667: “Home and found my wife making of tea; a drink Mr. Pelling, the potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.” Defluxions notwithstanding, it must be a matter of regret [...]