The UAE's First Tea Master Is Giving Used Tea Leaves a Second Life

Tea leaves, which most kitchens dump after using, have been turned into ink, compost and the subject of a patented research project thanks to one Emirati researcher.

Fatma AlMoosawi is the first Emirati certified by the US-based International Tea Masters Association and the founder of the UAE's first eco-friendly tea brand, Ygnd El Ras, an Emirati expression meaning "improves the mood." She has built a small portfolio of inventions around what should happen to tea once the cup is sipped in full.

For AlMoosawi, tea has always been an inherited craft. Her grandfather started blending it in 1961, and her father later created his own signature recipes, making AlMoosawi the third generation of her family to carry on the tea-blending tradition.

"As kids, we did not see it as a business or a tradition but simply a way tea was supposed to be made. My father has never put anything into his tea blends just because it smelled good or it was popular," she tells SceneNowUAE. "Each ingredient had to improve the quality of the cup of tea."

Her family's private ritual became a public mission after her father passed away in 2015. "At first, I just wanted to keep his legacy but after studying tea professionally, I came to realise there was almost no Emirati identity in the tea industry," she said. She built Ygnd El Ras and trained as the country's first certified Tea Master, a qualification that helped fully reset her tea palate.

"Today, tasting tea for me doesn't just revolve around whether I like it or not, it is analysing the structure, aroma development, the balance, the texture and the finish," she explains.

Ygnd El Ras handles the distribution of its products directly and does not use third-party distributors or resellers. Customers can purchase its tea directly through the brand's Instagram and WhatsApp, while Ygnd El Ras also supplies its tea as raw material to shops across the UAE and GCC.

In 2025, AlMoosawi was named among the region's 40 Arab Youth Pioneers by the Arab Youth Center. She is now completing a Master of Science in International Hospitality Management at Les Roches, the Swiss hospitality management school, with graduation expected in July 2027. 

The environmental turn to the business stemmed from her other life as a scientist. As a graduate in Environmental Sciences and Sustainability, she started looking at leaves in a different light.

"Tea is a natural resource, yet millions of cups are prepared every day, and what remains is simply discarded," she says. "Instead of thinking about how to produce more tea, I started thinking about how to give another life to tea after it had done its purpose." The idea turned into a research programme and then into three separate projects.

The compost became her first product to appear on the market, made by breaking down used tea waste into a nutrient-rich material that can be mixed into soil to help plants grow. More than two years of development went into a formula adjusted specifically for the UAE's sandy soils and extreme temperatures.

"There were two of the main things we focused on when developing the compost because we are working for the UAE and trying to improve agricultural productivity here: the high temperatures and the type of soil we have," AlMoosawi explains.

"Our compost contains perlite, which acts like small stones that help distribute water underneath the plant while also giving the soil structure."

"Because the soil in the UAE is very fine and water drains through it quickly, irrigation has to be much more frequent, which means higher water consumption. The perlite helps distribute and retain that water under the plant. At the same time, around 90% of the compost is made from tea leaves, which naturally have the ability to hold liquids within their pores."

Ygnd El Ras developed the compost through a strategic partnership with agritech firm ReFarm, whose fertiliser specialists were involved in the formulation's research and development.

Ygnd El Ras collects used tea leaves from tea shops and delivers the waste to ReFarm, which manufactures the compost.

The finished product is currently supplied through ReFarm to agricultural and landscaping companies in the UAE. Ygnd El Ras is also developing a consumer version. "One of the biggest misconceptions is that used tea leaves can simply be added directly to soil and immediately benefit plants," she says.

The ink route is still young and experimental, made from a different part of the tea leaf. "Our natural ink is produced from the left-brewed tea, tea liquor. It is further concentrated through brewing and tinted with food based ingredients into browns, burgundy, red and green."

At the moment, the ink is in the R&D process. AlMoosawi uses it for her educational workshops to prove that natural and plant-based alternatives can be safe and creative, especially for children.

Water purification is the oldest of her projects, dating back to her university years. "The water purification research was actually the starting point of my journey with tea," she said.

Beginning in 2018 from her bachelor graduation project at Zayed University, the research tried to understand whether used tea leaves could extract iron from contaminated water.

A year later, it took first prize in Abu Dhabi in the university category of Food Security and Water Sustainability at the Think Science Competition.

On May 20th, 2020, the project was granted a patent by the UAE Ministry of Economy, registered solely in AlMoosawi's name. It has not been commercialised.

Through all of it she holds both identities at once, the tea maker and the scientist. "Research should never stop by just presenting results," she said. "It should solve some real problems."

She wants Ygnd El Ras to remain the premium Emirati tea brand while growing into something more. "In many ways, Ygnd El Ras is both a tea company and a sustainability platform," she says.

"Tea is where our story begins, but it isn't where it ends."