Making Natural Dyes with Tea & Coffee

There’s no secret amongst loved ones that I’m equally a tea, art and nature lover. So I decided to do some artsy experiments with some nature dying, using various teas and coffee from my kitchen stash.

Which Teas Make Dyes?

Along my journey of making Earth-friendly art mediums (see here and here), I came across India Flint’s amazing Eco Colour book.

India suggests giving potential eco dye materials a quick test in boiling water for 5 minutes. If the water colours, it’s likely to produce dye pigments.

Here they are after 5 minutes of soaking.

Below, clockwise from top left: Brown onion skin, organic lemon myrtle tea, organic chamomile tea, organic black tea, organic coffee, organic green tea, red onion skin.

Preparing to Dye with Eco Mordants

I find this process of eco dye discovery and experimentation thrilling! It’s surprising to see the pigment capacity of everyday items.

Now, time to prepare some paper with different mordants (mordant = ingredients to bind the dye to the paper/fabric).

I decided to make some test paper strips and add a brush of vinegar, soy milk and leave the middle of the paper plain, to see if the colours altered with different mordants.

Labelling Mordant Dye Experiments

I labelled each piece with V for vinegar and S for Soy Milk, so I could see if any chemical reactions happened to change the colours of the natural dyes on paper.

Immersion, baby!

Next it was time to immerse the papers into the dye baths and wait to see what happens!

I left them to process for another 5 minutes. Having ADHD means the wait has me bursting with anticipation!

The 5 Minute Nature Dye Test Results

Time for the reveal! I wondered if the vinegars and soy milk altered the dye strength? Did all the colours work? Which didn’t?

Tea, Coffee & Onion Skins Win

I discovered mixed results with this short experiment.

Organic tea and coffee worked the best for browns (bottom right). The herbal teas didn’t hold too well under such short time conditions. The onion skins created some lovely yellows (top left).

In terms of mordants, I noticed the soy milk deepened the tea and coffee browns, where the vinegar resisted the yellow colour slightly on the onion skins.

All in all, it was a really fun experiment and I’m excited to keep exploring natural dyes and pigments in my art-making!

Create Nature Art with Me

I have some wonderfully inspiring nature art classes coming up for kids and adults.

Love this creative content? Be sure to sign up to my Artuitions mailing list to get email updates of my intuitive nature art & classes.