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.
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.