Using Spent Tea Leaves

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Some people often wonder what to do with the spent leaves of a tea, once they are done with a tea session. Personally, I try to use as much of a tea as possible as the making tea is a very time consuming process that requires a lot of effort, especially if you're buying from farmers versus corporations that make tea.

Here, I have this particular tea, of which I probably had a good 6-8 steeps, and there was a little bit of life left over.
  

I pull all of my tea leaves out of my gaiwan or teapot.


Provided that you haven't completely drained all of the flavor of the tea (i.e. the tea tastes like water), you can do a couple of things:
  • Continue to brew it "grandpa" style, continuing to add hot water as needed and sipping it throughout the day
  • Put it into a glass bottle, add cold water, and put into the fridge overnight for a flavorful cold tea the next day.
  • Drain as much water from the tea, put the leaves into the fridge in an air-tight container, then continue with a tea session the next day. 
    • This is helpful if your tea session gets interrupted and the tea is still good. 
    • You can also choose to dry the leaves on a paper towel. There are various opinions on this subject. I've tried both ways and they are about the same.
  • Use them in your cooking. I do this with a lot of Japanese green teas as taught to me by a Japanese tea sommelier.
Most of the caffeine should be gone from your tea at this point, so it's just tea 'juice' after a session (unless you're particularly sensitive to caffeine).

Let me know how you use your tea leaves

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