This post is by Lorna Cowie, an artist and self-described “extreme foodaholic”. If you enjoy these tips about tea, you’ll also love her post from last week.
I think most people would say they enjoy a good cup of tea. Not only is it relaxing, if yours contains caffeine it might help you wake up or keep going through the day. [Ali - An important consideration for us office workers – nodding off over the keyboard rarely helps win promotions!] But did you also know that you can use tea and tea bags as part of your healthy body ritual?
Steaming away: use tea to refresh your skin
If you are a herbal addict then just pop two bags of your favourite tea into a bowl of hot water (about three cups of boiled water), throw a tea towel over your head and let the steam soothe and refresh your skin for ten minutes. Steaming helps open pores and nourishes the skin, plus at the end of it you have a still-warm cup of tea to drink!
A good choice of tea bags for a steam facial are camomile, peppermint (great if you have a cold), rose, rosehip and lemon.
Other uses of tea: in your bath, over your eyes…
One step further? Why not! Add three of your favourite tea bags into your bath as you run it (remove those pesky paper tags first though) and you will have a lovely fragrant bath to relax in. One of my favourite ways of using a tea bag is to put it in a foot soak to soothe tired feet. Peppermint will help with those aches and pains and rose will leave your feet smelling sweet.
Want to drink your tea? Perfect, drink your tea and save the tea bags. Wrap them in food wrap and leave in the fridge until cold. When you are ready simply place them over your eyes (closed of course) and relax. Tea bags help to reduce dark circles from under the eyes, but remember to use tea bags that contain caffeine, as they also contain something called tannin which has an anti-inflammatory effect.
The other sort of “green tea”
When your tea bags have been used through drinking the tea, being thrown in a bath or placed on your eyes, you can also recycle them with ease. You can use them to plant seeds in, dig them into your flower beds and they act as little water containers for your plants but DO NOT throw them on your compost heap unless you know the bag is made of paper. Some tea bags are not made of paper, thus will not recycle down into anything useful. If you are unsure about your tea bags then simply split them open and empty the inside into your compost heap and either throw away the tea bag itself or dry it and burn it (safely please).
Not all tea comes in bags
Do you make or mix your own tea? Loose tea is becoming more and more popular and the variety is growing. I am lucky and have a “Herb Lady” who sells lose tea ingredients at my local market. If you have any favourite loose tea recipes them let me know! [Ali – drop me an email to ali@theofficediet.com and I’ll pass it on to Lorna. If we get enough great tips, we’ll put them on The Office Diet!]
Mmm, I think it is time to put the kettle on…
(Image above by T.MoE)
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