A long while back Marc and I discussed getting tea favours done up for us at a local shop. So off shopping we went, and disappointed we came back. They could make the favors for us, but at $2.75 a piece for 200 people it was a good $400 above our budget.
A few months later my mom and I were out shopping at Staples when we stumbled upon Brides Magazine favor boxes in the clearance section. (Apparently Brides Magazine is good for something!) Four boxes of fifty favour boxes on clearance for $9.95! Those boxes found themselves in storage while we entertained the idea of making our own tea. We had made tea for Christmas gifts, and while that tea wasn't high up in the flavor department, we figured we could make a new recipe that would be pretty top notch.
$60 and a heck of a lot of ingredients for loose leaf tea later — introducing our “Berry White” tea. This recipe makes approximately 100 favors of three tablespoons of tea (that will usually make one full tea pot):
What you will need:
- 2lbs dried cranberries, chopped
- 2lbs dried strawberries, chopped
- 1lbs loose leaf pomegranate white tea leaves
- 10 cinnamon sticks, broken up and then thrown in a blender to be “chopped”
- 3 full scoops of whole cloves (sorry I eyeballed these ones, it was the small scoop)
- 2 full scoops of whole allspice
- 2 scoops of star anise
Fabric fortune cookie favors
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Take all the ingredients, except for the star anise, and mix them by hand until it feels like everything is well integrated. After you spoon the tea into the favor container add one star anise to the bag or box. Pretty simple stuff!
The tea is pretty nice and has a nice sweet end on it. Only brew white tea for three minutes, as any longer will end with a bitter note.
By our calculations, we ended up saving $390.20 by DIY-ing our own loose leaf tea favors!
Hey! we did something quite similar — we got bulk loose tea (Earl Gray for me, and chai vanilla for my husband). I put a few tablespoons each in small baggies (like the kind you get jewelry parts in from the bead store). I printed out labels that described what was in each bag and asked that our guests share a cup with someone they love. Half our favor boxes got Earl Gray, half chai vanilla.
Each favor box (like you, ours were on-sale Bride Magazine products) also got a small baggie of wildflower seeds (with a label asking that people sprinkle them in their gardens or neighborhoods) and a homemade bookmark, with a note thanking them for coming.
It was a *lot* of labor to do all that myself, but even with all three elements in the box, they were still very inexpensive compared to anything made by the wedding industry!
We’re doing tea too! In the US (not sure where y’all are, but with your spelling of favour I assume the UK) people (sadly) don’t really do loose tea, so we bought fillable t-sacs too. We got nice looking ones here (http://www.henrysbypost.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=84). We’re making a nice chai as well. We ordered bulk spices from Frontier Herb (Star Anise, Cinnamon sticks, etc.) and loose black tea from the TeaSource (TeaSource.com, and we chose a cheap Assam. Very reasonably priced). All in all, should be super cute, not very expensive, and not all chintzy like a lot of favors we saw!
Spreading the tea love!
We’ve made 4 oz jars of homemade apple butter. Just haven’t figured out how to decorate the jars
How did you make the apple butter, that seems like a perfect favor?
pretty ribbon and a sticker should be more than enough!
So cool! I work in the tea business, and your blend looks spot on! I’ll be doing the same thing for my favours, glad to know that others think it’s an easy and fun idea as well!:)
Okay, what a great ideas! You would spend much more from an online store if you were to purchase personalized tea
I don’t quite understand what to do with the star anise, do we put it in the container with the scoops of the tea mixture??
My husband and I actually just talked about this. We’ve been struggling about what to do for wedding favors, and i saw an idea about a small tea bag and it said “love is brewing” So i asked him how he felt about the idea of doing loose tea, honey sticks, and buying cheap coffee mugs. He loved the idea so much anything else I’ve suggested he’s shot down. We both think it’s simple, different, and since I’m doing a lot of DIY stuff, it goes with that as well. We’ve been adding a lot of personal touches onto our wedding and this is just one more. thanks for sharing the recipe! I’m definitely using it once I get a head count!
This is great! I was thinking of doing this very same thing the other day, and wondering how to do it affordably. Perfect post!