The Story
How Hand-Printed Tea Art Became Teascarf Brooklyn
By Reed Slater, Textile Artist & Founder, Teascarf Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY)
I saw a ladder on top of a building near mine, and I climbed it. I fell to the roof below and was in a coma for a month, then hospitalized for another.
That experience changed my life. It also changed my outlook. I became more able to appreciate beauty in everyday things, and that changed what I saw in the world.
After what I experienced, ordinary things no longer felt ordinary to me. I wanted to find beauty where no one expected it, and use it. I didn't want to simply admire beauty. I wanted to create it. I wanted to make something beautiful and share it.
Against doctors orders, I signed myself out of the hospital. Although I tried, this was an injury I could simply disregard. I faced a constraint: a traumatic brain injury meant my developing career in construction and renovation was no longer viable for me.
I learned a new word: Sedentary. When I talked to the social security administration they told me to find a job that was more sedentary than construction. I needed to find a path that I could pursue from my studio, on my own terms. That limitation became the catalyst for everything that followed, it forced me to experiment, to take risks with ideas, and to discover what would eventually become my artistic practice.
The Process: Tea-Printed Textile Art
I'm Reed Slater, an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2012, I've been using steeped tea bags as a medium to create original, hand-printed artwork.
I don't really even like to drink tea. I make art with it.
How it works
The process takes time and care. That's what makes each piece unique.
Step 1: Preparation I source specialty tea varieties from the local supermarket, selecting for the picture on the box. I was trying to do something my time at Pratt Institute never taught me. I had to find the tea that was best for making art. I steep them to activate the pigments, arrange the steeped tea bags directly onto paper.
Step 2: Drying & Printing The tea bags are arranged as they dry over several days; as they dry they transfer tea pigment to the paper and the print gradually appears. Fans help this process. The paper itself becomes part of the artwork; the fibers interact with the tea in ways that have become predictable, which I've learned to anticipate through 12 years of experimentation, adding depth and variation to each piece.
Step 3: Documentation Before the print fades (as the print ages, the tea pigment naturally oxidizes and the colors shift), I use professional archival techniques, pressing the finished print with a hot iron to further intensify and stabilize the colors but they still continue to age, then I photograph the finished print. The print is photographed before it would continue to fade or shift further. It captures that specific state of the design. That photograph is the true record of the exact state of the design before it changes. This photograph is what gets transferred to the silk fabric.
Step 4: Textile Transfer The photograph is transferred onto silk chiffon or silk-wool blend using acid printing, a professional textile printing technique that requires the fabric to be pre-treated with a solution to enable the acid dye to bond to the fabric at a molecular level, ensuring permanent, accurate reproduction. A global manufacturer produces the scarves in small batches. I package and ship each order from my Brooklyn studio.
Why this matters for quality
Each design becomes a scarf. The specific tea-printed piece of paper was photographed on completion. The scarf you buy isn't a mass-produced version of a design; it's the textile incarnation of an unrepeatable artwork.
This also means:
- No shortcuts. No dye is added.
- Every scarf is printed from a distinct original.
- Durability. Acid printing means the natural fibers have changed color at the molecular level. Properly cared for, these scarves last decades.
- Traceability: Every scarf can be traced back to its original tea-printed paper, which you receive as an included artifact.
Why I do this
With a traumatic brain injury, I couldn't work in a traditional office setting. I had to find a way to support myself using what I could do from my studio. Art became not just a passion but a necessity.
What started as an experiment, "Can tea bags make a print?" became a full-time practice. My studio became a laboratory, with sheets of paper at different stages of drying on every horizontal surface. I spent months learning how different tea varieties behave, how humidity affects drying time, how the iron temperature changes the final color, and how to predict the unpredictable. I'd stand there in the morning, in the intoxicating aroma of tea drying all around me, but I couldn't see the final colors until the teabags had been peeled from the final composition.
At first, I questioned whether what I was making was art because the process was so unusual. I remember asking my artist friend if this qualified as art and he told me anything goes. That permission opened everything.
Founding Teascarf Brooklyn in 2012 was a way to share this work. Every scarf and pillow cover represents months of studio time, from concept to final product. Since 2012, I have completed designs, each one a single, original artwork transferred to silk. I work alone in my studio. When you buy one, you're supporting a working artist and getting a piece that can't be replicated.
The Artifact: The Tea Print You Receive
Every order over $50 includes an original 4×6" tea print on paper, signed and dated by me. Hold it up to light and you can see the paper fibers that caught the tea, the individual pigment marks left by the teabags themselves. You can compare it directly to the scarf you receive. They match because one is the photograph of the other.
See it in action
About Reed Slater
Artist, Brooklyn NY | Textile Artist since 2012 | Founder, Teascarf Brooklyn
I am a Brooklyn-based textile artist specializing in hand-printed tea art transferred to silk. My work uses tea as a primary medium to create photographic reproductions of original watercolor-paper prints. I work independently from my studio in Brooklyn and have been refining my website continuously since 2013. I work exclusively with steeped tea as a medium, creating hand-printed textile art.
Before Teascarf Brooklyn, my formal education at Pratt Institute was cut short by surviving life. The tea-printing technique is my own discovery and refinement over 12+ years of practice. I have experimented with hundreds of tea varieties, papers, and processing methods to develop the repeatable, archival technique I use today.
Contact & Transparency: reed@teascarfbrooklyn.com
Reed Slater is the sole creator, owner, and operator of Teascarf Brooklyn. All design and fulfillment is completed in-house from my Brooklyn studio. I am available to answer questions about the process, materials, or your order at reed@teascarfbrooklyn.com.