Make Your Own Tea Bags

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Make Your Own Tea Bags

My husband and I  love teaA lot. My favorite is black breakfast tea with milk & sugar. The hubs tends to go for more herbal teas. We are a tea family.

Make Your Own Tea Bags

Unfortunately, drinking tea has its own carbon footprint depending on how you obtain it. Ordering from the Starbucks drive-through, for example, leaves you with a disposable cup, tea bag, let alone gas & car pollution. Buying boxes of Lipton tea from the store results in lots of trash: plastic wrap around the box, the actual box, the tea bag wrapper, and the tea bag.

For a few months, My husband has been mentioning how we need to buy reusable tea bags and start purchasing loose leaf tea from the whole foods store, or even local coffee shops. Good idea, I thought. But a better idea is to make our own tea bags to reuse instead of buying them. I put him on the research detail, and I said I would sew them together. Turns out to be really easy.

Make Your Own Tea Bags

What you need:

  • 4×3 inch piece of unbleached muslin (Get it from Fabric.com)
  • 14 in piece of cotton string
  • Bead or button

What you do:

  1. With the fabric laying the long way, cut a whole on each side up top, about 1/2 inch down and 1/4 inch in.
  2. Thread the string through the holes
  3. Fold the top of the fabric down over the string, and pin fabric in place
  4. Sew the flap down over the string.
  5. Fold the fabric rectangle in half, inside out, with the draw string on top, and pin in place
  6. Sew the tea bag shut, about 1/8th inch from the edges, being careful not to sew over the string
  7. Turn the bag inside out.
  8. Tie a bead or button to the end of the string to use as a weight.
  9. Scoop in some loose leaf tea, steep in hot water,  & enjoy!

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Do you like this sewing project? Click here to view more easy sewing projects. Need a yummy loose leaf tea to put in these tea bags? Try our recipe for Strawberry Apple Tea!

What is your favorite kind of tea? Would you ever make your own tea bags?

erinbio

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21 Comments

  1. I’ve been buying loose leaf tea for years and find that they tste so much better than the regular bag teas that you buy in stores. I’ve been using a tea ball and it works great. I also save the used tea leaves for the garden!

  2. This is a great idea and a great gift idea too! I’m curious – what’s your cleaning routine for your homemade tea bags? How, how often, and with what? Thanks!

  3. Is the unbleached muslin porous enough? It seems too tightly woven. I love seeing someone after my own heart. I gave up tea with strings, staples and tags a long time ago and use a little tea ball. But have often thought about fabric tea bags.

    1. Patti, the muslin has worked okay for me. But if you find something that works better, let me know so I can try it out! =)

  4. I used to use a tea ball and as I’ve gotten older and my hands don’t often work well anymore I find myself struggling to get them open. Sometimes losing my temper and bouncing them off the kitchen floor…well only once..but I was very frustrated 🙁 These little tea bags work wonders for my hands and my disposition.

  5. Do you find that the cotton string wicks the tea up and out into a puddle where you cup sits? I’ve been trying to figure out a way to prevent that from happening with my reusable tea bags.

  6. Omg! This is just the post i needed to come across i have had the idea in my head to make my own peppermint tea bags (We drink lots of herbal tea in this house). I have bookmarked this so i can use it to make my Peppermint Tea bags! Thank you for sharing 🙂

  7. I guess I am just lazy. I have a couple of different teapots, 2, 4 and 6 cup sizes. I simply scoop the loose tea into the prewarmed pot, fill with water, allow to steep and serve with a tea strainer (the kind that sits over the cup). Much easier than washing tea bags to rinse out a flat strainer. But honestly most of the tea sits at the bottom and doesnt come out the spout anyway so even without a strainer the one or two leaves that can get into the cup are not much to worry about.

  8. Thank you for posting the how to make your own coffee/tea bag. I love both and I am only one so it is very convient. I have been missing my tea and coffee because I won’t pull out the coffee pot just for me since my daughter move out. Thank you.

  9. My partner likes one cup of coffee in the mornings. I hated his making 4 cups and throwing it away. I bought a one cup coffee maker at goodwill and I use the funnel coffee filters and put a scoup in one and fold it over…instant tea/coffee bag. Works great

  10. How long did it take you to make these?
    I want to make a few as gifts so i’m considering time constraints. Also is there a reason in particular you chose unbleached muslin, would i be able to use coloured muslin as well?
    Thanks!

  11. Has anyone come up with an idea for stopping the tea wicking up the string? Apart from that they are fantastic!

  12. Do you think it would work with ground spices? I like to warm apple juice and add apple pie spice but I hate all the sediment.

  13. I have a stainless steel French press that I brew tea in. It works great and is super easy to clean. I am going to try this sewing project to give away my garden teas as gifts. Great idea!

  14. Hi Dear,
    I was searching how to make a tea bag?. Recently, I’ve seen your article and read it. You’ve explained very good. I really liked it. So, keep up the good work.

  15. What kind of thread do you use to sew the bag together? I’ve been trying to research food grade thread but coming up empty.