Hot Chocolate Tea Bag Tutorial

   This tutorial, I will admit, has a flaw from the very beginning. If you were to make this hot chocolate tea bag and then try to steep it in water, the chocolate would just congeal in the bag. So I'll tell you from the start that if you do this, you will need to cut the top off of the tea bag and empty the contents into a mug before adding water.

   This tutorial does have a point, as it goes along with a tutorial I'm going to be posting in a few days' time. The tea bag aspect of this hot chocolate is purely decorational.

   First of all, you'll need your materials. You'll need a teabag (full or not), hot chocolate powder, needle and thread, and some washi tape.

   First of all, you need to make sure you've chosen the right tea bag. Pyramid bags can hold more than flat tea bags, so I used one of those. I've also noticed two different types of materials used for this. One is a woven fabric, thin and silky, but it had obvious holes in it, which the powder will escape from. These usually contain larger tea leaves that won't threaten to escape from the bag. The other type is a sort of papery material, but it's not really paper. It holds together perfectly well, and is usually used on flatter tea bags. The Albert Heijns tea bags I got in the Netherlands are pyramid shaped and made of this papery material, which, though you can see into it, does not have any little holes in it. These were the bags I used.

   Cut the bag open near the top - I cut about half way across one edge - then empty the contents. If you have a tea diffuser then you can rescue the tea, but if not it might have to be binned.

   Next you replace the tea in the bag with cocoa powder. I used Options because there are few calories, and you don't need to add any sugar, milk or anything like that, just water.

   You can use an icing bag or funnel to direct the powder, which I did, or you can use a teaspoon and spoon in a quarter of hot chocolate powder at a time.

   Once you've done that, you can add to it. I added in a few marshmallows, knowing I'll have to cut the bag open to empty the contents first anyway, but you can also add sprinkles, edible stars and so on.

   Now you sew the top back up and you're done. Be careful with the stitching. The papery bags don't close back up if you pierce them, like paper doesn't. You'll notice, though, that little to no powder is escaping from the body of the bag.

   Next you can cover the tag of the teabag in washi tape to make it look a little more special and won't be confused with actual tea.