IS YOUR TEA RICH IN PESTICIDES ? OR AM I JUST BEING CYNICAL ?

The latest report from Greenpeace entitled "Trouble Brewing - Pesticides Residues in Tea Sample from India" shows that random samples of your first love “Lipton Yellow" contains more than 16 known pesticides harmful to health.

Unsurprisingly, Lipton and Twining’s and other big (and sometimes small) commercial brands use similar lines of work, i.e., buy huge quantities of cheap tea worldwide (India, Sri Lanka, China, Kenya), blend it to always obtain the same taste, and sell it as quality tea with a lot of marketing buzz around. Tea is indeed Tea, but there are many levels to consider.

Do you want to know why am I going to pin down the pinnacle of your childhood tea souvenir, when you first discovered tea, and for most of us in the shape and taste of a teabag. Do you want to know what is in your favorite teabag ? You can read the Greenpeace report “Trouble Brewing” to have a clear idea of what’s really going on in the world of tea, and you can also read below to go through my cynical observations and realistic suggestions:

[Just a precision, I will not talk about all the existing flavored tea where natural (and less natural) essences, dried fruits, spices and oils are added to give a specific taste. This will be the subject of another cynical article]

My favorite teabag contains real tea leaves

• Yes, but your favorite teabag contains what we technically call “fannings” or simply put “leftovers” of processed tea. Granted, some teabags contain leftovers of quality tea, which make them upscale quality teabags. Nevertheless, leftovers are still leftovers. Since nowadays, you pay attention to traceability when it comes to fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, etc… why not doing the same when it comes to tea, a drink that you consume daily, perhaps in much more quantity than veggies or meat.

My favorite teabag is delicious when mixed with milk, sugar, honey, apple syrup, bourbon, etc…

• Of course, diluting the flavor up to your desired taste makes it bearable, but did you ever try a teabag without the usual flavoring of sugar or/and milk. Tell me more about the taste after 30 seconds, and in particular after the recommended brewing time indicated on the packaging (some says 5 minutes !!!!).

My favorite teabag is practical, and available everywhere

• Welcome to the world market. That’s the globalization, the international world of commerce. But rest assured, small organic companies are also making themselves available almost everywhere, and if not, they will be soon. Finally, high quality teas available wherever you are . We still need to find a better way for shipping though, and try to use less polluting and damaging methods of transportation. I am actually thinking about both tea and earth.

My favorite teabag told me “sugar is good for you” and sometimes “brew me long time”

• Sit down at a tea stall in India, Sri Lanka or Thailand, order a iced black tea, and observe the preparation: Add 40 grams of tea in a big teapot, let it brew for 30 minutes, and serve on request in individual glasses using the following ratio tea/water: 1/6 for clear tea, or 2 to 3/6 for stronger brew, add six spoons of sugar, mix it well, and here you go, a true explosive bomb of sugar. And remember, the longer you brew non organic tea, the more chemical residues will pop up out of the fannings and happily swim in your glass (followed by a dive in your body).

My favorite teabag is no longer my favorite since I switched to loose tea

• Indeed, taste is a marvelous human sense. You will be happy to know that your palate can be trained to appreciate great organic fresh food of all kind, not only tea. But once you go organic (and believe me it s not that hard), you can never go back to the cheap inorganic so called food or tea you used to stuff yourself with. Learn to love fresh, keep calm and buy smart, fresh is the key, frozen or refined is not. And you will be sorry to know that you will need basic cooking and brewing skills, but hey, it’s a good excuse to get yourself away from the TV remote.

Allow me to stop here. There are still so many things to notice and do something about that I would need to write a book instead of a blog article.

Regarding bad teabags, or bad tea with a lot of pesticides, it will be unfair to say that every single commercial brand is dedicated to serve bad tea as long as the tea has not been either tested for pesticides/harmful chemicals or fully certified organic by an independent institute/laboratory (which tends to be rare these days ...).

However, I know for sure that most (again not all) of tea brands, tea room, tea stores and online tea stores are buying their tea from either a broker, a wholesaler or a distributor, but surely not from a farmer, and they have certainly not (again for most of them) never visited the tea fields where their tea is actually coming from. So from this point of sourcing, unless you are given authentic certificates stating that either the tea is organic, or that the tea has been tested and no harmful chemicals have been detected, you would have no idea about what and in which quantities pesticides have been used to produce this tea.

Actually, what Greenpeace reports in this particular field of tea can be also applied to virtually anything that is being cultivated and grown on the surface of this earth.

Oh yes, the world of fully organic and good for health, rich in vitamins and minerals has long gone buried in the farmer's past. Have you ever wondered how long it takes for a “fresh” vegetable to reach your plate ? For how long this apple or tomato has been stored at very low temperature before being displayed for sale on your local store ? There so many examples ...

Anyway it shouldn't depress you, what we all need to do is to adapt ourselves to the fast changing pace, and we need to put some effort into it, the best is to buy from local stores, those getting fresh supply from local producers (instead of devouring strawberries all year long cultivated at 12’000 km), eat fresh (not frozen, not processed, not refined, virtually anything that comes from an industrial plant), exercise, and enjoy life, tea, food, friends, family, arts, love, and sometimes tears as much as you can.

But do yourself a real favor, forget about the so-called practical tea bag, and learn to brew good organic tea.