Tea by-products
This is part of our series on upcycling.
Tea leaves, whether loose leaf or in tea bags, are usually brewed and left to steep for some minutes in hot water, before being removed and discarded. Yet these leftover leaves are surprisingly high in protein (more than 20% of its dry mass) and rich in micronutrients, antioxidants, polyphenols and other healthy compounds.¹ Imagine if we just boiled other nutrient-rich foods like berries, dark leafy greens or oily fish for a few minutes, drank the water and threw away the rest? What a waste! Granted, freshly boiled tea leaves aren’t quite as immediately delicious as other foods, but the point stands that each time we do that we’re throwing away something valuable whose potential can be unlocked through innovation.
The same is true when making kombucha. Among fermentation enthusiasts, kombucha is something of a gateway drug and no doubt many readers will have had a few SCOBYs floating menacingly in a glass jar in their kitchen at some point. But what to do with the remaining tea leaves after each brew? As commercial kombucha becomes increasingly mainstream, the presence of this by-product will only grow.
Here we present some of our culinary research into ways we can better utilise tea by-products.
Contributions & acknowledgements
Eliot wrote the article, with contributions and editorial feedback from Josh.
Stock image credit: PamWalker68 (iStock).
Endnotes
[1] Joanna Klepacka, Elżbieta Tońska, Ryszard Rafałowski, Marta Czarnowska-Kujawska, and Barbara Opara (2021), ‘Tea as a source of biologically active compounds in the human diet’, Molecules.; Manoj Kumar et al. (2023), ‘Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze) as an emerging source of protein and bioactive peptides: a narrative review’, Food Chemistry.