Other Uses of Tea
Tea is a superexcellent drink with wonderful color, scent and taste. Besides its main function as a beverage, tea has various special uses. Some of these uses include:
1. Making tealeaf boiled egg. Brewed tealeaves or tealeaf fannings can be used for making tealeaf boiled eggs. Better use black tea, and the ordinary one is very cheap. Eggs cooked with black tealeaves have a delicious taste and a rosy color. The process of making such eggs is: first, boil the eggs; then break the eggshell gently; and then put tealeaves into the boiling water together with those eggs, enabling the taste of tea to soak into eggs.
2. Making tealeaf pillow. Brewed tealeaves can be used for making pillow after dried in the sun. Since the tealeaf is of a cold nature according to traditional Chinese medical science, so tealeaf pillow can help one to be clear-headed and fast thinking.
3. Driving out mosquito. After making brewed tealeaves dry in sun, one can burn them in summer evenings. The scent of burnt tealeaves can drive out mosquito with an effect resembling that of mosquito-repellent incense, and at the same time, it will do no harm to the users.
4. Used as flavoring. Tealeaf is rich in coloring matter and has a wide usage, especially henna black tealeaf. Tealeaf can be used in mixed drinks and food. As a kind of flavoring, black tea juice is far better than common chemical coloring matters.
5. Nourishing flowers and plants. Brewed tealeaves contain various nutrients such as inorganic salt and carbohydrate. If buried in garden or flowerpot, they can nourish the growth and breeding of flowers and plants.
6. Making candy. Tea can be made into delicious candies with a special flavor, such as the black tea milky candy.
7. Sterilizing and curing dermatophytosis. Tealeaf contains a great deal of tannin, which has a strong sterilizing effect, especially to filamentous fungus, which causes dermatophytosis. Hence, if people who suffer from dermatophytosis persist in washing their feet with concentrated tea juice every evening, they will get rid of the disease without using any medicine. But these people should persevere in doing so, because one will see no obvious effect within a short period. Better use green tea, since the fermented black tea contains less tannin.
8. Eliminating halitosis. Tea has a strong convergent effect, which could eliminate halitosis when kept in the mouth. One can gain same effect by gargling with strong tea. If one does not like drinking tea, she/he can first steep the tea in water to reduce its bitter taste before chewing it.
9. Nourishing hair. Tea can wash off dirt. One's hair will appear black and tender with a luster after washed by tea. More over, tea will do no harm to one's hair and skin since it does not contain any chemicals.
10. Washing silk clothes. Silk clothes cannot be washed with chemical detergent. Brewed tealeaves can keep the original color and luster of silk clothes and fibrous nylon clothes as well.
11. Remitting the symptoms of a cold. If one gets a sour throat and a hoarse voice, she/he must have caught a cold. After drinking several glasses of strong tea added with sugar candy, she/he will feel better. This was once a folk prescription widely adopted in rural areas.
