Instructions to Build a Tea-Bag Balloon

Introduction

Get ready for fifteen minutes of hot-air ballooning fun! With nothing more than a plentiful supply of tea bags and a box of matches you can make you own hot air balloons that can go as high as two metres (with the right wind conditions). Go ahead, raid the kitchen cupboard and make one now.

What You Will Need

You will need

one tea bag and
some matches.

How To Build It

Without tearing the paper, remove the staple that holds a tea bag shut.
Tip out the tea leaves from the bag. See Mal's hot tip number 2 for something to do with the tea leaves.
You will find that the tea bag is in fact a tube of paper. Carefully open out the tube so that it forms a cylinder.
Stand the tube on its end on a heat proof surface where there is no wind.
To launch the balloon light the top of the paper tube with a match. The tube will burn down and after a moment it will lift off.

There you go, tea-bag balloons in a nutshell. Just be sure you don't set your kitchen on fire.

Nicola has suggested other paper tubes to use instead of tea bags.

This also works with the thin paper wrappers from oranges or Amaretto biscuits which means you get the pleasure of eating and then the fun of launching the wrapper. Just roll the wrapper into a tube, stand on a plate and light. Great entertainment for dinner parties.

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Last modified: Thu May 14 08:56:14 1998