Why is my cat eating my peppermint teabag and will it harm her?

[DilysPrice]

She is obsessed with them, and I just left a dry teabag in the cup and went off to answer the phone / only to find her surreptitiously licking up the contents of a disembowelled teabag from the kitchen work surface.

Is it just because she's an idiot, or have Waitrose secretly doped my teabags with catnip?

I wouldn't have thought it would do any harm. The upside is minty-fresh cat burps in your face first thing in the mornoing.

I think catnip is in the mint family.

Anything which might make her a bit less stinky would be much appreciated - maybe I should give her one daily (Tescos own brand though probably - do you think Lidl do mint tea?).

as ohyoubadkitten said catnip is in the mint family and maybe dried the tea bags to the cat smells like catnip, cant see them doing her any harm especially when you think cats sometimes eat, mice, spiders, flies and other un savoury things

One of our cats used to love herbal teabags! Particularly camomile. Didn't seem to do her any harm.

My siamese always tries to drink my peppermint tea.

Some teas also contain valerian, which is a cat attractant

One of ours used to go batty for herbal teas, we would hear him ransacking kitchen cupboards a night think we had an intruder, to find the cat writhing in ripped up tea bags on the work surfaces!

He had a thing for ground coffee too IIRC.

at night, thinking we had an intruder.

My mum kept a box of horrible valerian teabags for her cat, as she would play with them and tear them to pieces and it was very endearing.

They love that kind of thing. Dr Stuarts valerian ones. Supposed to be soporific, but they are vile.