Things To Do With Green Tea (other than the obvious thing)

Image courtesy of zirconicusso at FreeDigitalImages.net

So I'm a bit of a tea junkie, a fact that became apparent at the day job when our purchasing officer came to give me a package and found the eight million (approx) packets of loose leaf tea I keep in my desk. Discussion ensued and the next day he presented me with two giant bags of Japanese green tea. I feel it's important to state that Japanese green tea is the really, really good stuff and honestly doesn't compare to your old Twinings tea bag nonsense. It's got a great, deep, toasty flavour to it, it tastes delicious, and I now have a lot of it. I'm keeping the genmaicha at work to share with the purchasing officer, but I took the other bag of regular green tea home to add to my small (approx) collection of loose leaf tea there.

And then I realised I had a lot of green tea and decided to see what else I could do with it apart from drink it, and the internet provided many an idea. Green tea is rich in antioxidants and can (maybe) help reduce wrinkles and signs of aging, as well as helping with sun damage. As I never go out into direct sunlight on general principles, that last one isn't really a problem for me, but I assume other people do sometimes venture outdoors before dark...

1. Freeze it.

This came courtesy of the amazing Crunchy Betty. Brew a strong cup of green tea and make ice cubes from it. They're anti-inflammatory so they work great as quick spot/blemish treatments. I've taken to keeping a tray in the freezer at all times and the ice cubes really do work if you use them a couple of times a day on clean skin. You can also do this with chamomile tea apparently, but I haven't tried that yet.

2. Make toner/cleanser with it.

I found this article and figured using loose leaf tea would be just as good (if not better) than using tea bags. I don't use commercial creams or cleansers, so rather than mixing green tea with a shop-bought cream, I've been making a mixture with lemon juice and storing it in the fridge. It keeps for about a week, and I've been swiping it over my face every evening after I take my make-up off. The lemon juice acts as a mild exfoliant and can help reduce acne/scarring as it's antibacterial.

3. Make a face mask with it.

There are a ton of ideas for natural face masks all over the internet, depending what you're looking for. My current favourite ingredients are kaolin clay, cocoa powder (another anti-oxidant), lavender, and oatmeal. But I recently got a whole bunch of other dried herbs that are supposed to be great for your skin, so I've been mixing and matching a lot. I ground up a few spoonfuls of green tea leaves with some thyme, lavender and kaolin clay and have been using it once a week. In addition to smelling amazing, it leaves your skin all soft and lush. I also made up a batch with green tea, oatmeal and cocoa at Christmas for my sister-in-law, and she loves it (although my brother is less keen because apparently she blocked their sink with it somehow? Not sure I need to be involved with that debate however).

4. Make a body scrub with it.

I love making sugar scrubs with shea butter - they're exfoliating, moisturising, and you can make them smell like chocolate. Plus there's the added bonus of leaving a slippery residue all over the shower, creating an adventure for the next person to use it. Shea butter can be messy to work with though, so green tea leaves make a quick and clean alternative - simply mix them up in an oil of your choice and scrub away! I tend to use either grapeseed or fractionated coconut oil, but in an emergency olive oil is as good as anything. You could throw in a bit of coffee or sugar too for added scrubby powers.

5. Rinse your hair with it.

Another one you can also do with chamomile tea. Brew a pot, pour it into an appropriate container, wash your hair as normal, then rinse with the tea. Bonus! Add essential oils for extra care. I tend to add rosemary if I do this, and there's a good list here of oils for different hair types. This gives extra shine or, in the case of chamomile tea, extra blondeness.

If you're using green tea bags, keep 'em after you've steeped 'em - the cool bags can be rubbed over your face as a toner or under your eyes to get rid of dark circles.

And for the record, actually just drinking green tea can have health benefits, allowing you to feel extra smug about the whole thing and not at all secretly wishing it was hot chocolate.

Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at FreeDigitalImages.net