I had almost 100% germination with this method. Peat pellets on a mini greenhouse on a heating pad so the green house is around 80 to 90 degrees fahrenheit. It took all my seeds even tepin and nagas a week to sprout. Its pretty simple and works well. Just make sure to watch for damping off fungus so don't keep them overly moist.

Proper light and...more importantly...bottom heat is what you're looking for to increase germination percentage.

The nutrients in the teas are somewhat wasted on pepper seeds...they don't need them.

Plant 2-3 per cell if you're doing a traditional small cell-pack planting and thin to 1 plant or do a mass seedling planting in 1 pot, pick when elongated, and replant into separate cells.

Oh...it's not a nutrient tea, but the "green/black tea method."

For older seeds and seeds that demonstrate secondary dormancy it might help, but for pepper seeds (unless they're especially old) you don't need to get that kind of tea involved.

So, what did I do wrong? If everyone else has good results with the tea and a nice warm environment, what did I do wrong? Any suggestions?

Perhaps your seeds were old or had been poorly stored?

They probably had a warm counter top or surrounding air, better soil/media, didn't water from the top so the seeds didn't float around deeper into the media, had better quality seed to start with...etc.

There's a ton of things that could have gone wrong.

It most likely had little to do with the tea.

Did you sacrifice a virgin to the pepper seed sprouting gods?

Actualy I think that whenever I tried any of the seed soaks I've seen on the internet none were worth the hassle.
Looks like the tea you used has something in it that mold loves to grow in or on.
In general my seeds sprout best when put in damp soil on top of my freezer for 10 days.I put a clear plastic cup upside down over the seed to keep them moist.
When I run out of room for soil filled sprouters I put them on top of a piece of damp paper towel in mini zip locks on the freezer top.
The only tea that for me sometimes works is weak chamomomile tea to prevent damping off.

For small seeds I get better results by laying the seeds on top of the soil and putting a piece of damp paper towel over them rather than covering with soil.Once the roots get into the soil I remove the paper towel.

I've got some seeds from some Cancun market Habaneros that are well over 5 yrs. old that sprouted last year and only 1 didn't sprout out of the 5 I planted.

Too much water and too much or little heat are the only things that used to mess me up.Too much water was the most common-damp is enough water.Wet invites mold and bugs...Bad things to grow where you don't want them to.

Keep it simple. They want to grow.

"...So, what did I do wrong?"

I'm not sure YOU did anything wrong. My guess would be bad seeds - either stored too long (or incorrectly) or pod was immature when harvested.

There's LOTS of info out there about seed starting. Here are a few you might enjoy reading;

Uncle Steve's opinions

Fiery Food's thoughts

The Chileman's Growing Guides

Some good seeds, a little soil, a little water and a little heat and off you go! And don't forget to add some light once they sprout. Good Luck!

Well I decided to do another experiment. When I opened up another pepper from my ristra I realized my problem must have been the pepper that provided the seeds. The new seeds looked entirely different than the ones I got from my first pepper. I remember now that the pepper had a defect in it and I didn't want to make chili out of it....how dumb am I?

So, I decided to duplicate the experiment exactly to see what would happen with better seeds.

These are my results at only 4 days:

No soak: 23/25
Warm water soak: 8/25
Cold water soak: 2/25
Warm tea soak: 1/25
Cold tea soak: 0/25

Not to mention that the ones soaked in tea have "damping off"

So, I feel confident now that if I simply introduce my seeds to a warm, moist environment, with no soaking involved, I will get the best results. My incubator is set to 30°C. I have small wicks wetting the coffee filters.

Just as you said, fiedlermeister, "Keep it simple. They want to grow."

All I know is trying to start seeds in a cold room in an Aerogarden did NOT work for my peppers last year!!!

After 2 weeks I took a count and here's where it stood:

No soak: 23/25
Warm water soak: 18/25
Cold water soak: 19/25
Warm tea soak: 15/25
Cold tea soak: 13/25

As far as peppers go, I got a good result with the warmth of the incubator and coffee filters kept wet with thin wicking string. I'm not gonna mess with tea, but at least I know that I don't need to. (BTW: When I say "warm tea", I just mean room temperature)

Thanks for the data.

I got similar results awhile back

I did this test along with other pre-treatments in 2003. And found no significant difference except for a method where the seeds were left in water. There were 50 seeds per sample of Baily's Piquin. Results were:
1) Tea soak---88%
2) Potassium Nitrate soak ( 1 tsp/qt of water)--94%
3) Tap water---100%
4) Hydrogen Peroxide( 10% solution)--94%
5) No soak--94%
6) Dilute Miracle Grow--94%
7) Left soaking in water--44%
8) 10% bleach soak and into small jars--98%
I don't think any but the soaking in water are of statistical significance