Warming you up, but what about the planet?

I love tea! I don’t like it, I love it! As you might notice in my blogs I can go from hating to loving very easily and the same goes for my relationship with tea. For some reason my mother (sorry mom, I love you :D) always drinks her milk with tea. I don’t like milk, so I assumed I did not like tea. When I met my current boyfriend he was always mocking me about not wanting to drink tea. After a while I tried it and it was great! Root cause analysis, my mom drinks milk with tea and the tea should not be strong so basically it is milk with hot water. When my appreciation for tea started to grow I was tracking how much waste I was producing by using this product, it was insane. You have a tea bag a wrapper, a box and often these are made out of plastic or contain plastic coatings. There had to be a solution to that. Another experience which changed my perspective of tea is how it is grown. When I was visiting the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia I was talking to some friends who live there and they told me that the pesticides are very bad for wildlife and cause cancer among the people who work the fields, good job Bayer! To add to this farmers would set parts of rainforest on fire in order to start new tea plantations, these practices still continue today. In this blog I want to address the small changes you can make in your tea drinking habits in order to protect our planet.

The first part of this blog I will devote to the problem of deforestation and pesticides. All I can tell you is what I have seen and what my dear friends have told me, I tried to find more information on the web but somehow this is not a popular story to share. When I visited Tanah Rata in 2016 things did not look to good. When the bus drove into the city I saw a couple of fires which turned out to be man made in order to gain farming land at the expense of forest and wildlife. The drive to do so is generated by successful big plantations in the area and everybody wants to earn a little money. There is no real governmental protection of the forest and thus these practices continue. The problems I sketch are not unique to Malaysia, as is shown in the blog Tea and progress they are also common in India and Kenya.

• 

• 

• 

Now what can you do to make sure you can enjoy your cup of tea without worrying about deforestation or poisoning animals? Buy different tea! That’s right there is a lot of good tea available on the market which has a lesser impact on wildlife and makes sure no land is illegally taken. Take for example products which are part of the rainforest alliance. These are usually the bigger brands which have invested in more sustainable farming which does not contribute to deforestation. Another good way to be sure that your cup of tea is environmental friendly is to check if it is farmed organic which reduces the impact on wildlife and fauna. Look for the Soil Association, USDA Organic or EU Organic certifications when you buy your products.

The second steps to make your tea drinking ritual less painful for the environment is to look at the packaging. Nowadays you can buy all kinds of variations of tea bags ranging from biodegradable unbleached materials to plastic. The plastic ones should be avoided at all times since just as straws they are hard to recycle. Try to find bags and boxes which do not use plastic in order to reduce waste. I see a lot of companies who feel that tin or metal packaging is the solution, and although it looks pretty, it is a lot heavier than cardboard which causes a larger amount of exhaust gasses to be created during transport. The best thing to look for is thus plastic free and lightweight packaging.

• 

• 

After searching for a while I found some great alternatives on the market to the regular tea brands. My favourite is Clipper, an English tea brand fully focussed on making their product sustainable and tasty. All of the materials they use are recyclable and their tea is organic and fair trade. Another great tea brand which is organic and works with recycled and recyclable packaging is The English Tea Shop. They sell very nice packages so this is a perfect brand for a gift. I will start reviewing some tea brands to keep you guys posted on the taste of sustainable teas.

• 

• 

If you want to make an extra step to reduce your waste impact while drinking tea, try a tea egg. You can buy them in all sizes and colours to fit your personal preferences. I personally buy my tea in a bag at a tea shop in the city and use a tea egg to brew it since there is no waste except for the bag where it comes in. A good brand of lose tea is Simon Lévelt, they are part of the rainforest alliance and sell organic tea. On their website they even have a list of tips to prepare your tea more sustainably. One of these tips is to use an electric kettle instead of warming water on the stove since it is more efficient. You can also order your lose tea with Arbor Teas who use compostable packaging and have carbon free business practices.

Let’s have a cup of tea!

Rinoa