Serenitea: Exploring Tea Clay as a Sustainable Material for Game Design for Visually Impaired People
Abstract
This project explores the large-scale application potential of Tea Clay, a material made from waste tea leaves. With 5.9 million tonnes of tea consumed globally each year, approximately 90% of steeped tea is discarded, resulting in significant environmental pollution. Using the Material Driven Design method and harnessing Tea Clay’s unique properties, we developed Serenitea, a memory board game designed for both visually and non-visually impaired individuals. Serenitea follows the rules of a memory game while incorporating the introduction of a new biobased material and social stimulation between visually and non-visually impaired people. Improvements to the original formula, such as incorporating gelatine and water to introduce reprocess ability, allowed the material to be reshaped after steaming, improving its recyclability and production. Mechanical tests demonstrated that Tea Clay's Young’s modulus and density are comparable to polypropylene and polyethylene, indicating potential for substituting conventional plastics. User tests revealed a strong interest in engaging with the material, particularly when its sustainable composition was explained. This study underscores the potential of Tea Clay as a sustainable material for product development. Our findings provide an example for leveraging organic waste streams in the creation of functional, socially impactful products, and offer a blueprint for future sustainable material innovation with organic waste-based materials.
Keywords
Tea Waste; Visually Impaired People; Sustainable Materials; Material Driven Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1077
Citation
Ko, S., Ghodrat, S., Zhou, J.,and Parisi, S.(2025) Serenitea: Exploring Tea Clay as a Sustainable Material for Game Design for Visually Impaired People, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1077
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 8 - Circular/Sustainable Design
Serenitea: Exploring Tea Clay as a Sustainable Material for Game Design for Visually Impaired People
This project explores the large-scale application potential of Tea Clay, a material made from waste tea leaves. With 5.9 million tonnes of tea consumed globally each year, approximately 90% of steeped tea is discarded, resulting in significant environmental pollution. Using the Material Driven Design method and harnessing Tea Clay’s unique properties, we developed Serenitea, a memory board game designed for both visually and non-visually impaired individuals. Serenitea follows the rules of a memory game while incorporating the introduction of a new biobased material and social stimulation between visually and non-visually impaired people. Improvements to the original formula, such as incorporating gelatine and water to introduce reprocess ability, allowed the material to be reshaped after steaming, improving its recyclability and production. Mechanical tests demonstrated that Tea Clay's Young’s modulus and density are comparable to polypropylene and polyethylene, indicating potential for substituting conventional plastics. User tests revealed a strong interest in engaging with the material, particularly when its sustainable composition was explained. This study underscores the potential of Tea Clay as a sustainable material for product development. Our findings provide an example for leveraging organic waste streams in the creation of functional, socially impactful products, and offer a blueprint for future sustainable material innovation with organic waste-based materials.