If you know me, you know I am a huge tea drinker and lover! I drink tea more than I drink water in my daily routine! I love how it never gets boring drinking teas! There are so many options for tea companies and different teas these days and a variety of prices as well. Just like food, I try to make sure I am consuming the best quality since we are putting it inside our bodies.
Recently, CBC published an interesting article about how they tested many common tea companies and found that there were actually traces of pesticide in some of the tea bags. These pesticides can steep into your cup of tea! You can read the full article here and see which teas they tested as well.
I discovered Rishi Tea a few years ago when I used to work at the airport in Toronto. The restaurants served Rishi teas and I fell in love with the teas immediately. Flavour was the number one thing I noticed about Rishi teas. The different tea varieties offer whole leaf or bud, rolled, and specialized cut tea leaves as well as a diverse selection of botanicals, all attributing to an array of full flavours. Many other tea brands, after one steep, your tea tastes like water. But not with Rishi Teas. All their teas can be steeped with full flavor at least 2-3 times. Many teas, like black, oolong and pu’er can be steeped nearly all day and the infusions are still full of flavour. As I continued to enjoy Rishi teas, I realized they were more than just a great cup of tea. They actually do a lot to ensure your cup of tea is safe to consume.
A great example of how Rishi Tea goes the extra mile is that they use a plant based material called PLA to make their tea bags. These tea bags are biodegradable (in about 2 months time, they will biodegrade). They do extensive testing to ensure their tea bags are safe and you can even contact them and request a copy of their test results! Talk about transparency!
Another big one for me since I drink a lot of green teas from Japan is the level radiation that can be present in teas from certain parts of Japan.
“On March 11, 2011 the Tohoku tsunami and earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan caused the devastating Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, releasing radioactivity into the environment.” Rishi Tea has been testing their teas from Japan, at origin and again in the USA, to measure any possibility of radioactive isotopes. To this day there are no concerns for any teas from Japan for Rishi Tea! Another main thing we hear a lot about these days is the sustainability efforts of large companies like Rishi. I will just quote them because I cannot say it any better than them, but this is how they address sustainability:
“Our ethos is to make authentic local connections and achieve a real understanding of the socioeconomic challenges facing our suppliers and their communities. We view our suppliers as long-term partners; their financial livelihood, community development, and environmental preservation are all crucial factors to our mutual success in the tea trade. We share an understanding that doing organic agriculture requires clear communication, planning, and collaboration. The tea industry largely operates on trust, not by contract. By visiting and working together in person year after year, the farmers can rest assured that Rishi will provide a stable and sustainable export market for their high-value organic tea.”
All in all, Rishi Tea makes amazingly tasty, high quality teas that we can feel safe and good about drinking. If you haven’t tried any yet, you can order it online through their website! I also created a recipe using their Dandelion Detox tea here or check out my Easter Matcha Hot Cross Bun recipe here.
Have you tried Rishi Tea before? What is your favourite tea? Comment below, I would love to hear!
Leave a Comment