How to Tea Dye Fabric For a Vintage Look

Dyeing fabric with tea is a craft that goes back hundreds of years. Botanical and natural dyes like the dyes created from tea and other plants are some of the oldest ways people have traditionally decorated their clothing, quilts, and other fabric accessories.

Fabric is dyed with tea by steeping the tea in hot water, then soaking the fabric until it takes up the color of the tea. After dyeing the fabric is dried so the tea stain is allowed to set in. Tea dyed fabrics have a lovely vintage look, but should not be laundered with chemical detergents to preserve their color.

Tea dyeing fabrics is one of the easiest fabric-based crafts you can get into, even if you’ve never worked with natural dyeing before. Read on to learn more about this fabric craft and how to tea dye your fabrics for an antique look.

How Do You Dye Fabric With Tea?

The fabric dyeing process with tea is simple enough to be done with kids or beginners who have never worked with dyes before.

Supplies for Tea Dyeing Fabric

Here are the supplies you need to get together to do a tea dyeing project:

Piece of fabric: Several types of cloth can work well for tea dyeing, but white cotton fabric is a popular choice because the natural fabrics take the tea stain well. I’ve had really good luck with a simple muslin as well. Synthetic materials won’t give you a satisfying or repeatable result, so stick to the kind of fabric made from natural fibers.
Tea bags: Black tea is a popular type of tea bags for dyeing fabric, but you can also use other types of tea such as matcha tea for a green shade of dye or butterfly pea tea for a blue dye. The number of tea bags you use will determine the depth of the dye solution.
Large pot of water: You need a large metal or clay pot for soaking your fabric in the tea stain. Since you’re only using organic edible substances, you’re fine to use a regular cooking pot or stock pot for your tea stain. You’ll want enough to be able to submerge the entire fabric in.
Spoon: You’ll need a stirring spoon to stir the fabric in the tea solution so that it stains evenly. Either a metal or wooden spoon is good for this purpose.
Stove: The tea stain is created by brewing a big pot of tea on the stovetop before adding your fabric and submerging it for 10-15 minutes.

As long as you have these supplies, you have everything you need to tea-dye your fabric. Optionally, you can include iodized salt and white vinegar for dye setting purposes. You’ll also want to have a place set aside where you can hang your fabric out to dry.

While it’s possible to tea stain fabrics in a washing machine, I like the stovetop method. And I never have to worry about the tea stain rubbing off on other loads of laundry.

Steps for Tea Dyeing Fabric

Once you’ve gathered everything you need, it’s pretty simple to get going.

Brew up the tea dye bath: Fill the large pot with water and add your desired number of black tea bags. 15 tea bags is a good place to start. Depending on the size of your pot, you may want to use fewer or more tea bags. Place on the stove and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce to a simmer and let the tea steep on the heat for 10-15 minutes.
Add fabric: Keeping the pot on the heat, add your entire piece of fabric to the tea dye bath. Make sure it’s immersed completely by stirring and pushing it down with the wooden spoon. Once fabric is completely wet and covered with dye, continue to simmer gently for about one hour. You can do more or less time if you’re happy with the depth of color.
Rinse: Carefully remove fabric from the hot water. If you like you can let the water cool before removing if you want a deep color. Rinse the fabric until the water runs clear.

Why Tea Dye Fabric?

There are several reasons why you might want to use tea to dye fabric rather than synthetic dyes. Here are just a few reasons why you might want to try using tea as a fabric dye:

Soft colors: Unlike synthetic dyes which can give fabrics a saturated and artificial feel, tea dyes lend fabric a muted shade that looks pretty with many different kinds of fabric projects, especially those that have a vintage feel.
Inexpensive: Tea is a much cheaper alternative to buying commercial dyes for dyeing fabric. It’s even more inexpensive if you already have tea bags around the house.
Organic: Tea is an organic, non-toxic dye that is less likely to cause an allergic reaction than synthetic fabric dyes. It’s also completely safe for children to handle since they can’t be hurt from accidentally drinking the tea.
Subtle look: A light tea stain doesn’t add a dramatic difference to the color of your fabric, which makes it a solid option for a more nuanced and sophisticated result.

The supplies to do a tea dye are inexpensive and many of them can probably be found in your household already. This is a great excuse to try a tea dyeing project at home.

Is Tea Dyeing Fabric Permanent?

Tea dyeing a fabric is a permanent, or colorfast, method of dyeing fabric. This means that once you’ve stained a light colored or white fabric with tea, the color shouldn’t come out.

Keep in mind when you’re tea dyeing fabric that a lot of the tea will rinse out when you’re rinsing and hanging the fabric to dry. If you want a deep tea stain, you’ll need to use lots of tea bags and let the fabric soak overnight for a rich darker shade of tan.

Tips for Adding Tea Dye to Fabric

Tea dyeing fabric is already a pretty easy process, but there are a few hints you can take to heart that will make the project even simpler to pull off. Follow these tips for a good result in your tea dyeing project:

Use vinegar and salt to help set the dye. Add two parts vinegar (white) to one part water in your tea dyeing solution and include two tablespoons of salt to make sure that the dye sets in completely. According to Quilters Review, this is a great way to achieve a darker color result.
Tie fabric in bunches with rubber bands before dyeing. This method will give your finished product a soft monochromatic tie-dyed look.
Let the dye set before rinsing. Rinsing out your tea-dyed fabric will remove some of the color that’s set in the fabric, so let the fabric soak overnight to ensure a deep shade. Always use cold water to rinse your newly tea-dye fabrics.

Add turmeric for a golden look. Adding some turmeric to your tea bath solution will give the tea stain a beautiful yellow undertone.
Experiment with different types of teas. Black tea bags are the most popular type for tea-dyeing projects, but you can also try green tea, berry tisanes, other herbal teas (try a chamomile tea bag), as well as coffee dye for varying shades of blue, green, pink, brown, and purple.

Half of the fun with tea dyeing is playing around with different ideas, so don’t be afraid to try new things. The process is easy enough that you should end up with a good result even on your first dye project if you choose a fabric that takes dye well.

Can You Launder Tea Dyed Fabric?

Tea-dyed fabric can be laundered somewhat, but you can’t put these delicate dye jobs in the regular wash. Chemical detergents are designed to get out food stains like tea, and using a regular laundry detergent on your tea-dyed fabric will eventually lift almost all of the color out of it.

Instead, if you want to wash the tea fragrance out of your dyed fabric, simply wash the fabric gently in the sink with some color-protective Woolite and cool water. This will help protect the color and remove some of the tea fragrance from the fabric at the same time.

Tea Dyeing Fabric is a Time-Honored Art

Even if you’ve never dyed fabric in your life, dyeing fabric with tea is a homespun craft that anybody can get into as long as you have the basic supplies on hand. If you want to tea dye paper, check out this post on how to tea stain paper for the easy tutorial.

This inexpensive project is the perfect way to create some homecrafted gifts or just amuse yourself on a rainy afternoon. If you’re looking for a Christmas gift for a tea lover, why not try tea staining some fabric and create something special!