Tea Dyed Easter Eggs!

I finally flipped over the calendar to April and realized that Spring is upon us and Easter will be here soon.  So I let my fingers do the walking through some search engines to find information on tea dyed eggs.  We love hard-boiled eggs in my house, so why not tea color them for extra fun!

The first site I came across had some great information about different foods you can use to dye eggs.  It’s called Natural Easter Egg Dyes.  Perfect!  There was definitely enough information to start me on the path!  I subsequently found the All Natural Easter Egg Dyes page from Better Homes & Gardens.  Also great information!

So I hardboiled a dozen eggs.  We found that the best way to do this is:

Place your eggs in a sauce pan and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil, uncovered.  When the water is boiling, cover the saucepan, turn off the heat and let them sit for 18 minutes.  After 18 minutes, place the saucepan in the sink and run cold water over the eggs until they are cool.  Then refrigerate.

While the eggs were “cooking” I put the kettle on to boil some water for the teas & tisanes.  I placed 1 Tbsp of leaves in different cups ( 8oz size) and filled with boiling water. For these eggs I used:

Hibiscus flowers (dark purple/purple-black)
Gunpowder Green Tea (yellow/brown)
Fuji Green Tea (yellow)
Assam Belseri Black Tea (brown)
Chamomile Flowers (pale yellow)

Once the eggs were hard-boiled and dried, I decorated them with crayons then placed them in the now cool, very steeped teas.  I didn’t remove the leaves, I left them in there to keep brewing.

After I liked the color of the eggs (some I left overnight) I removed them from the brewing cups and dried them.  Then I preheated the oven to 250 and placed the eggs on a foil lined cookie sheet (with sides).  I kept the eggs in the oven for 10 minutes and then wiped the crayons off the eggs.  And Voila – lovely earth toned Easter eggs!

If I was feeling adventurous (which I haven’t felt quite yet) I found a great site that has information about further decorating your eggs.  In some cases, they add lace or paint on the eggs with lovely results. It’s called 40 Creative ways to decorate Easter Eggs.

How do you color your Easter eggs?