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There seems to be 2 methods that I've seen online to do this:

  1. infuse the tea leaves in hot oil if choice (virgin olive, coconut etc)
  2. Doing the same thing as above but with cold oil

I've tried the 1st method and I've left it to infuse for 4 days in a jar now but the scent is still weak. For reference I'm trying a green tea/toasted rice concoction for a candle scent.

So is there a better way? Soaking it with alcohol first? I don't have a still at home.

Thank you!

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    The quality of scent you can achieve in any oil highly depends on the quality of scent in the raw material. You'll always lose some scent during the process, so you need tea that is extremely fragrant to extract enough scent to infuse a candle. That's why most manufacturers use liquid aromas instead of raw ingredients.
    – Elmy ♦
    Commented Feb 17, 2022 at 15:22
  • @Elmy gotcha. So liquid aromas as in essential oils or fragrance oils? I'm trying to create candles that aren't irritating for my family with scent
    – user12565
    Commented Feb 17, 2022 at 15:59
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    Does this answer your question? Information regarding skin friendly wax candle additives
    – Elmy ♦
    Commented Feb 18, 2022 at 6:15
  • @Elmy, it's possible that the irritating scent mentioned in the comment refers to skin irritation from hot wax, but the actual question is about how to make the scent stronger. This doesn't look like a duplicate as written. But your 1st comment looks like the gist of an answer. Consider fleshing it out into an answer.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Feb 18, 2022 at 19:21
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    I've grown plants for tea making. As Elmy noted, this would have to be a large amount of tea leaves to get a slight aroma made of just tea leaves. Using dried leaves as tintures(putting one product together plus alcohol). It would have to sit for several weeks to months.
    – Lyssagal
    Commented Feb 19, 2022 at 14:55

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The problem with your ingredients is that both (green tea and toasted rice) only have a mild scent to begin with.

The scent mostly comes from essential oils. Things that are rich in essential oils like lavender flowers, eucalyptus leaves or mint have a very strong scent that can be overpowering. But it's easy to extract their scent into a neutral oil and use that to infuse things like candles or soap. In fact, most tutorials for "tea infused candles" use mint or lavender tea instead of green tea!

Both green tea and rice have only a very small amount of oil, so it's harder to extract any scent from them. You should heat 100 ml oil in a pan to medium-low heat and steep tea leaves in it for 15 minutes. If the oil is too hot, it destroys the scent. If the scent is still not enough, add more tea. Don't worry if your tea bags break apart in the hot oil, that's normal.

In theory you could extract more scent by putting the ingredients in alcohol, but mixing alcohol into candle wax makes the candle melt and drip, the alcohol makes the drips themselves flammable and such a candle poses a high risk of burning down your home. The only safe options for adding scents to a candle are essential oils or scented wax melts.

There are many candle scents available by many manufacturers, including green tea. They usually contain instructions like "add X drops of oil to Y weight of wax". If you find a scent too strong or irritating, you should add less to the molten wax.

Paraffin wax can hold the most scent without any additives.

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