Joat- for what it's worth, tea has a long history of being completely accepted as a coloring agent for wood. it's a part of many recipies for matching colors for the repair of antiques. generally the recipies call for a strong batch- I assume stronger than you'd want to drink it. Bridger
A few weeks back I posted something on using coffee and tea for >stain. >
> Earlier, I was in the shop and came across the piece I had used for >testing. >
> The coffee had 1 coat, 2, 3, and 4, with a coat of poly across each.
>They all looked good, especially where the poly was. The coffee had
>taken longer to dry than the tea. I ran a finger across the poly, good.
>Then I happened to touch the 4 coat beside the poly. It was still
>sticky. So was the 3 coat. The 1 and 2 were fine.
> I'm not sure what they're like under the poy, but that's it for my
>experimenting with coffee as a stain. The tea now, dried geat, dried
>faster than the coffee, and looks almost as good. So, I'll be using
>just tea for staining.
>
> Yeah, I might get better stain from commercial stuff, but it could
>get very expensive before I got one that'd give me the look I want,
>while tea gives me just the look I wanted, it's a lot cheaper, I can
>even replenish at any stop-n-rob, and it's invirermentelly (sic) safe. >
> I'm having a good time in a tent.