How to use up low-quality tea?
November 14, 2019 12:47 AM Subscribe
The Christmas teas at Lidl had cute tins and decent ingredients. Alas, the flavour is completely not up to par. I balk at just throwing away the tea. Give me your baking, DIY or other surprisingly useful recipes that use up black tea and are forgiving of the tea's quality!
I have two tins of 90g each (less a few spoonfuls of my attempts to make the tea palatable). Both are 91% black tea, 1.9% cornflower, 1.9% respectively cranberry pieces in one tin and orange peel in the other. The remaining 5.2% is unspecified, but it makes the resulting brew taste like slightly sour CTC from a fourth brewing. The colour is all right, and the tea has all three named ingredients clearly visible in the mix, with the tea leaves around BOP grade. The scent feels artificially cranberry and orange respectively.
(That'll teach me not to buy tea I can't see/smell.)
I have two tins of 90g each (less a few spoonfuls of my attempts to make the tea palatable). Both are 91% black tea, 1.9% cornflower, 1.9% respectively cranberry pieces in one tin and orange peel in the other. The remaining 5.2% is unspecified, but it makes the resulting brew taste like slightly sour CTC from a fourth brewing. The colour is all right, and the tea has all three named ingredients clearly visible in the mix, with the tea leaves around BOP grade. The scent feels artificially cranberry and orange respectively.
(That'll teach me not to buy tea I can't see/smell.)
You can use it to dye fabric or paper.
I have found that with some fabrics (maybe synthetics?) it washes out pretty easily, so take that into account and maybe test things.
Bonus: your dyed items will probably smell interesting.
posted by amtho at 2:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have found that with some fabrics (maybe synthetics?) it washes out pretty easily, so take that into account and maybe test things.
Bonus: your dyed items will probably smell interesting.
posted by amtho at 2:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Kombucha is a great way to use up a bunch of questionable tea, and will generally erase or overpower any wrong notes in flavor.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:40 AM on November 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:40 AM on November 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
Sometimes tea that isn't nice hot makes perfectly fine iced tea.
posted by Polychrome at 5:18 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Polychrome at 5:18 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
Steep it with a pint of cream/milk, then chill the dairy to make ice cream. (Works great with lots of things, actually!)
Simmer it on the stove with some spices to make the house smell nice during the holidays.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:28 AM on November 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
Simmer it on the stove with some spices to make the house smell nice during the holidays.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:28 AM on November 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
Tea-flavored scones. You can either put the tea directly into the flour when mixing or for cream scones, gently warm the cream and steep the tea in it, strain, let cool, and proceed with the recipe.
Also, see if your local library has a book along these lines:
Steeped: Recipes infused with Tea
Culinary Tea: More than 150 recipes steeped in tradition from around the world
Cooking with Tea
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:46 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also, see if your local library has a book along these lines:
Steeped: Recipes infused with Tea
Culinary Tea: More than 150 recipes steeped in tradition from around the world
Cooking with Tea
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:46 AM on November 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have crafted with tea and like to make drawer sachets with tea I don't/won't drink. If you have the resources to make it, loose tea makes a really pretty add-in for handmade paper, as well as pressing.
posted by juniperesque at 8:11 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by juniperesque at 8:11 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Mix with enough fruit juice to make it taste nice. Water plants with it.
But also, I totally understand feeling strongly about not wasting foodstuffs, and have to remind myself to avoid causing further/extraneous resource consumption just to have the satisfaction of using sthg up. It might be fine this time if you use/gift the nice tins and chuck or compost this relatively small amount of plant material.
posted by runincircles at 9:37 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
But also, I totally understand feeling strongly about not wasting foodstuffs, and have to remind myself to avoid causing further/extraneous resource consumption just to have the satisfaction of using sthg up. It might be fine this time if you use/gift the nice tins and chuck or compost this relatively small amount of plant material.
posted by runincircles at 9:37 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: All very good answers for Doing More With Tea (and damn, none of those cookbooks got translated... funnily enough Polish libraries don't stock English books), but marking as best the one that inspired me to make a Christmas cake for the first time - definitely going to feed it with rum - and runincircles who inspired me to just chuck the contents and reuse the tins. They now house actual good Christmas blends - one is gunpowder tea, chocolate slivers, clove, pink pepper and marzipan, and the other is green and white tea with dried apples, pink pepper and vanilla. Proving that flavoured Christmas blends can be actually good!
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:24 AM on November 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:24 AM on November 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by vincebowdren at 1:52 AM on November 14, 2019 [2 favorites]