Tea Pillows

After you make a pot of Gong-Fu style tea pot you are left with a fair amount of used tea leaves. Instead of just throwing them out, try a Taiwanese handicraft - making tea pillows.

The used tea leaves are spread out in the sun. If they are loosely spread and the sun is strong, the leaves will dry in one afternoon. If you dry them in a bowl they may take several days to dry sufficiently.

It takes quite a lot of tea leaves to make a tea pillow, so you may need to collect them for several weeks before you have enough. Or enlist all your oolong-drinking friends to save their used tea leaves for you. If you absolutely can't wait until you have enough leaves, mix them with another type of stuffing such as polyester. This is the non-purist path, though.

Once you have enough leaves, sew them up into a pillow shaped cloth bag. Cotton is the best material for the pillow case.

Benefits of Tea Pillows

Tea pillows will help you sleep well, give you pleasant dreams, improve your sex life, and increase your lifespan. Wow!

They are beneficial for people who sweat excessively. When a regular pillow becomes wet it can release microbes and dust which can cause bronchial problems. Tea has antimicrobial properties so tea pillows are an excellent choice for anyone suffering from asthma or other breathing problems.

If that's not enough, tea pillows will also "improve eyesight, calm the nerves, rectify heat, refresh the brain, improve sleep quality, and strengthen your body" - according to a manufacturer of tea pillows.

That's right! If you are too lazy to make your own tea pillow you can buy them fresh from the factory.

The problem with buying tea pillows, though, is they don't last long. The leaves eventually break up into fine powder which inevitably leaks out into the bed. After a month or two they should be replaced.