How About A Tea Bath?

You hear a lot of things about tea these days. How it can heal your cancer, prevent a cold, take ten years off, and raise the dead. This is a post in that regard. Not every interesting tea story you read here will come from the dawn of civilization (there could be no civilization before tea). From time to time I'll share some of my personal experiences.

A couple of weeks ago I did something I've been meaning to try for a while now. I took a bath in tea. Sound weird? I promise I didn't drink it afterwards, nor expect anyone else to.

Sometimes when I'm out shopping with my girlfriend I'll come across some five-dollar satchel of tea for the bath. I'm not going to spend that kind of money on one bath and I hope that you wouldn't either. I'd had a rather long week and decided to take a nice long bath. Now, I'm six foot two and the tiny bathtub in my apartment is probably five foot six, so you know it must have been a rough week if I'm going to try to fit into that thing.

The problem was I couldn't find any of my girlfriend's bubble bath. Not to be deterred I set out to make my own. I remembered that at one point I'd discovered that the main ingredient in one of her Lush bath bombs (cool stuff but expensive) was baking soda, so I started there. Digging in the cupboards I found an old bottle of Dr.Bronners Tea Tree Oil soap. I'd never liked the smell of that stuff but I knew it would bubble up really good so it would do. At the time I was saving up my used tea leaves to put into my plants (they say it's a good fertilizer) and had a few days worth waiting to be used. I felt I had all the pieces now for a good bath.

I brewed a really big pot of tea with the spent leaves and took it to the bathroom. While the water was running I added the soap and baking soda then poured the brew in. For some reason I threw the leaves in there as well without really thinking. Immediately I regretted that as it looked rather swamp like in there. I'd spent too much time putting this together to just forget about it and made a mental note not to do that again and got in.

I immediately erased that mental note. This felt great! The baking soda was aerating the water and making the leaves float all over the place. The result was that it felt like sitting in a spa, a weak one, but still nice. The leaves were now brushing up against my skin, and the smell of the tea had begun to overpower the damned tea tree oil smell.

Suddenly the week wasn't all that bad. My skin had never felt better and my mind was refreshed. Yes, I have tried some of my girlfriend's expensive bath bombs (I'd rather not think about how much they cost) and they were nice, but this was definitely better. No doubt in part due to my having made it myself and feeling quite clever as a result.

Did it prevent a cold or heal my warts? Probably not, but when you feel good you tend to stay healthy.

Cost = Nothing, I already had everything. The baking soda was just sitting in the fridge, the soap was something I'd never intended to use, and the tea had already been used.

What were the final results of taking a bath in tea? Ahhhhhhh!

Do it! But find a way to do it cheap.

Now go have a cup.