THE ART OF USING TEA AS AN AGING PROCESS OR HOW I ALMOST BURNED DOWN THE HOUSE

Using brewed tea to age fabric is a very old process similar to using onion skins to dye eggs brown for Easter, in case you didn’t know about such things? It’s a very practical way to use common household ingredients.

First you boil a pot of water, then add tea bags depending on the amount of cloth you're aging. I put six in about two quarts of water and left it with the lid on until it cooled. If you have too much material, you may need to do it a second time with more tea bags, which is what I was doing the second time. I was really trying to change a white table cloth into an antique white one. (I did this in the bathroom sink)

But it was time to pick up a friend we had invited to lunch at a cafe nearby, so I put the second batch of bags in water and left it on the stove and intending to turn on the burner when we returned.

We had a delightful lunch. The waiters and waitresses, who are unpaid volunteers, were friends of all three of us. We chatted with them, some whom we haven’t seen for a while. Our guest, who is moving, was glad for the chance to say goodbye to old friends.

We finally returned home to a horrific smell in the kitchen. I did not intentionally turn on the burner, but it was truly my own fault. Black sooty stuff from the pan was all over the top of the stove and the pan itself was ashen colored and stuck to the glass top.  I thought I wouldn’t be able to pry the pan off the glass without breaking something, but I tugged, it come off and I was able to take it outside to cool. I went out later to put it in the trash and I saw there were big balls of charcoal inside which used to be teabags.

We had opened the windows and patio doors, turned on the fans and the smell went away. We cleaned the glass stove top and it’s working just fine. It wasn't possible get out some of the burnt on stain, but it works fine.

I think God was looking over us.