The Tea Recipes
designing bio-based material and products from tea waste
How can we acknowledge the value of resources when the economical value drops with time? How can we turn waste food resources into valuable materials again to endure? The Tea Recipes explored the possibilities of turning dropped value tea resources into materials.
Drinking tea is a tradition in my hometown Yibin, China. However, despite large production, more than 300,000 tons of over produced tea is left without being sold or consumed each year. The value of tea drops dramatically with time. The situation is most typical with summer-autumn tea, due to their bitter taste than spring tea.
The project was supported by Tongji University and in collaborating with the Applied Biological Engineering Lab of Yibin University. It is a research-led bio-based material experimentation process, resulting in systematic exploration of material making, properties, processing techniques and applications. The process revealed a spectrum of short term and long term use of tea waste in products. On the long term end, the aroma lamp incorporate natural tea aroma from waste stream and the waste heat from LED light bulbs as a way of diffusing. On the short term end, the tea waste can be processed into disposable tea cup. The clay-like properties make possible various forms of tea cups and decent tea drinking behaviours. The materials can be biodegraded completely in 3-4 weeks.
This graduation project was awarded Ecological Design Award by the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University. The project has been exhibited at "Craft – the Reset" by Design Society in Shenzhen China in 2019 and featured by Material District.
