Whenever someone has an irritated eye or eyes, my grandma suggests to them that they should pour tea in their eyes, once it has been cooled, of course. My grandma was born in a village outside Tehran called Aghasht. She moved to Tehran when she got married and moved to the United States in 1986. She prepares this tea in the same way she prepares the tea we drink, using tea leaves and a samovar on the stove. She assures me that the health benefits of tea are lost in the dust that is used for the tea bags sold in stores. Once the tea cools, it can be poured in the eye with a spoon a few times, as she does sometimes, or one can be more innovative and use an eye dropper. The tea reduces the redness and itching associated with eye irritations and sometimes infection.
My entire family has adopted this as a first resort to eye irritation, probably because it has a high success rate. I have used this remedy myself to fix eye irritation and for me, it helped. I was surprised to find that the tea did not feel like water; it felt almost like it was scratching my eye. It caused me to tear up quite a bit, but after putting the tea in and washing it out, the redness and irritation had reduced.
I have heard recently that people put teabags on their eyelids to reduce redness, puffiness, and dark circles. This seems like a modified version of my grandmas remedy.
Annotation: This remedy can be found in the following book: