We grow clean herbs, hand-harvested with care. We avoid pesticides and synthetic fillers. And when it came time to choose a teabag, we wanted to put as much thought and care into it as we do with every other step. We figured finding something plastic and chemical-free should be easy, right?
Absolutely not.
Let us tell you a quick story.
One Saturday, a customer came up to our booth and she was furious. She had done the teabag burn test at home. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s exactly what it sounds like: you light a used teabag on fire to see what happens. If it turns to ash, it’s probably paper. If it melts, there’s plastic.
“I lit your teabag and it MELTED! You said this was plastic-free!”
What she didn’t know was that our teabags aren’t made of plastic at all. It’s not even made of paper. It’s made from something called plant silk. And yes, it does melt because it’s plant-based, not paper-based, yet it doesn’t contain any plastic or synthetic fibers. But how can that be?
How It Works
It’s a fully plant-based material made from organic, non-GMO beets, sugarcane, and corn. The natural sugars and proteins in those plants are extracted and then fermented and spun into silky threads, kind of like how silk worms spin silk, but with plants!
These threads are then woven into a fine, sheer mesh that looks and feels like a silk teabag but without the plastic. Which means it’s:
-
Plastic-free
-
Glue- and dye-free
-
Biodegradable
-
Safe for hot water steeping
But Why Not Just Use Paper?
Something most people don’t realize is that paper teabags usually contain plastic or synthetic glues, especially the ones that are sealed without a staple or string. To heat-seal a bag, it needs something to melt during the sealing process. And that “something” is usually polypropylene, a type of plastic woven into the paper fibers. That plastic might not be obviously visible to the eye, but it’s definitely there. And when you steep it in boiling water? You’re also steeping the plastic.
In fact, one study from McGill University found that just one plastic teabag can release over 11 billion microplastics and 3 billion nanoplastics into a single cup. These particles are tiny enough to enter your body and they don’t break down in your system or in nature.
When we learned that, we knew we had to find something better. But honestly? It wasn’t easy.
The Search for a Better Bag
We thought it would be simple to find a clean, compostable teabag. But every sample we tested had issues. If it didn’t have plastic, it had chemicals. If it didn’t have chemicals, it had a weird taste or smell. Even the “silk” tea bags they sell in fancy teas were just plastic in disguise!
After months of research, calls, and trial runs, we finally found our current teabag: plant silk in Japan, a country where food-grade manufacturing standards are even stricter than in the US.
Using only plant-based ingredients and no chemical additives, we could truly feel good about what we were putting on the shelf and what you were putting in your cup.
We want you to feel confident in every part of the experience from leaf to bag to cup. Most of us are drinking teas to live healthier, so why are we forced to compromise?
This is our way of saying: no more compromises.
So to our passionate customer who lit her teabag on fire, thank you. You reminded us that people are paying attention and we’re proud to say, so are we.