There are any number of alleged uses for a used tea bag, including various cleaning tasks, soothing your weary eyes, and fertilizing plants. Tea has also been used in various ways to make art, and the same goes for tea bags. But what about making your own tea bags? Well, I’d have to say this article is the first time I’ve ever run across such an unusual notion. Instructions are included, if you’d like to play along, and the end result is interesting. Although it seems like more effort than I’m willing to expend.

Did you know that boiled lambskin used to be used as armor for Icelandic warriors? Me neither. Not until I ran across this article that notes that nowadays it is being used for more mundane purposes such as sleeves for iPads and teapots. Great stuff – unless you’re the lamb.

I’ve written a number of articles about offbeat tea patents but think I might have overlooked the one that offered a “method of enhancing tea flavor and aroma,” one that makes use of various extracts from fruits such as apricots, bananas, apples, and more.

Tea at its most basic – leaves, hot water, and something to steep it in – seems like a formula that can’t be improved on much but that doesn’t stop people from trying. There’s the tea bag, for example, and more recently there are those single-serving tea pods that are alleged to be an improvement on the basic tea formula. Along the same lines is the Teadrop, which is said to be “a portable morsel comprised of finely sourced tea, natural sugar, and aromatic spices creating a blissful tea blend that can be enjoyed any time, any place, with just hot water.”

Finally, it’s become something of a tradition to mention an exceptional novelty tea infuser in each one of these monthly gadget reports. This time around we were going to present the Octeapus. Which is probably about what you’d expect, given the name. As the manufacturer’s description puts it, it’s a Tentacled Tea Infuser. Sadly, it’s already sold out.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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