Tea, Paper, Silk

The process takes longer than people expect.

Tea bags steeped, then arranged on 30×40" watercolor paper. The composition is adjustable while everything is wet. Once the tea dries into the paper, that's it — permanent.

Drying takes at least two days.

Then the paper gets pressed with a hot iron. The paper warps as it dries — the iron flattens it. That same heat sets the pigment and intensifies the design, bonding what the tea left behind and bringing the color forward.

That finished paper is the original artwork. It gets photographed, then translated onto mulberry silk — chiffon or silk-wool — preserving the marks, the edges, the layered forms the tea made.

The scarf is that translation.

Nothing about the process is fast. The tea decides its own timing. Two days of drying can't be shortened. The iron step can't happen before the paper is ready.

That's not a limitation. It's just how it works.

— Reed Slater
Founder, Teascarf Brooklyn

See how it's made.