To start, our sources.
Our teas come from the finest tea estates around the world. A lot of brands say something to that effect, but we mean it. Tea made with the purest, most aromatic and inspired ingredients (p-arom-i) starts at the source. Each farm and garden is personally selected by our founder, Paul, who looks not only for high quality crops, but also for beautiful variations in body, character, taste and aroma of leaves that can come from a distinctive geographical spot.

Whole leaf teas.
Tea leaves come in many sizes, and the size of a tea leaf plays an important role in how it tastes and the level of health benefits it delivers. In the final stage of processing, tea leaves get passed through sifters that separate out whole leaves, broken leaves and very small tea particles better known as fannings and dust.

Broken leaves, fannings and dust are the "leftovers" of the production process—they’ll turn your water into a different color, but they’ve lost the essential oils that provide any flavor, aroma or healing benefits. These small tea particles are the ones that get mass marketed and you find widely available, often packaged in bleached paper bags.

You only get complex, nuanced flavor, deep aroma and those healing perks from whole leaves, so that’s the only kind we use. Every time.

 

Fresh herbs & no fillers.

Sometimes we add fruits, spices, herbs, flowers and essential oils (in flavors different than the ones that occur naturally in our leaves, we should add) to our blends. These are typically produced by small farms which pool their crops and we usually shop their ingredients through cooperatives representing these small producers.

Keeping it clean.

We purchase all ingredients from select producers who meet strict standards of quality and cleanliness, but after that we don't simply kick back and assume that the best producers always deliver safe crops. Once our ingredients leave their origin farm or garden, we have them screened by an independent lab to make sure there are no unwanted or harmful substances.

In fact, we carefully monitor our all of our ingredients all the way through our process. It ensures that all of our teas, organic and conventionally grown, meet strict U.S. and European standards. Your high standards, too.

Blending is everything.

Finding the best ingredients is important, but it’s what we do with them that really matters.

In tea-speak, a combination of more than one ingredient is called a blend. To us, blending is an art, and we’re devoted artists.

After our ingredients pass quality inspection, they are shipped to a blending facility where our herbalists and master tea blenders skillfully pair the loose teas with premium fruits, spices, herbs, flowers and essential oils. Each member of our team is in relentless pursuit of the ideal balance of flavors and aroma, and only move on when they’ve got it.

To ensure consistency, all of our teas are blended in small, 40-pound batches.

We believe in Fair Trade.

We’re passionate about tea, its history and its traditions. We also know we need two very important things to guarantee a lot of delicious tea in the future: our earth, and people.

Our goal is to help the Fair Trade movement grow. We've chosen to work with suppliers who run local programs geared towards bettering the environment and enhancing the welfare of their workers. We’re also a partner of Fair Trade USA, an independent, third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States. Their seal of approval means that strict economic, social, and environmental criteria were met in the production and purchase of our teas. Ultimately we are working towards bringing all of our suppliers under the Fair Trade umbrella.