Reusable Tea Bags

#30/365 Paintings

Her family loved tea. All kinds of tea: Ceylon, Jasmine, Green Tea, Blue Tea, Camomile, Chai Tea. At first she hung out the bags on the line because she wanted to squeeze out every last drop of flavor in the leaves and conserve their bank account. Tea wasn’t cheap and the extra special teas had to be ordered. She stopped re-using the tea bags when her husband got ill. They lived in Indiana so it could have been from a number of pathogen carrying insects. “Kind of gross” her daughter said.

But she loved hanging those bags. The way they dangled on the line like Christmas ornaments. The soft sounds had comforted her through the years. She didn’t want to stop. She decided to dry them, empty them of their herbs, dye them and sew them together in gauzy sheets. She then made dresses that billowed up like storm clouds. Soon the theatre company asked her to design and sew costumes for the stage. These days she is the one being served tea as she creates stunning, dramatic tea bag sourced costumes for the stage.