Used tea bags don’t just have to be thrown away. Hong Yi, a Malaysian architect and artist nicknamed “Red”, used 20,000 tea bags to create a large-scale portrait called “Teh Tarik” Teh Tarik Man". Teh tarik is a specialty drink in Malaysia. The milk tea is "pulled" back and forth between two cups. The more bubbles are produced, the better the taste. Viewed from a distance, the man in the portrait is focusing on the teh tarik in his hand. There is an ice shaver and a jar beside him, which seem to be common items in teh tarik shops. From a closer look, the layered arrangement of tea bags of different colors is also shocking to the eye.
For such a large-scale work, one can imagine the complexity of the creation process. Kangyi first puts the tea bags into hot water, soaks them in 10 different colors according to different temperatures and water volumes, and dyes them with food coloring to make them darker. After that, the tea bags were nailed to the wire mesh and hung on the wooden frame one by one according to the color of the tea bags and the desired outline and lines. It took a total of 2 months to complete.
