Tea Bag Ingredients

Food for Thought:

by Rebekah Rice for the Nutrition and Education Committee

Choices for Tea Drinkers

Several weeks ago I took my teapots down from the upper cabinets, washed out the dust, and started using them again. While I was at it, I went through my kitchen drawers and found tea strainers, tea balls, and assorted tea preparation items for making individual cups that had fallen out of use. It’s hard to reconstruct exactly when my household switched from sharing pots of tea to making individual cups using tea bags, but we are officially switching back to bulk tea.

Making this change makes sense to me in a number of ways. For one thing, it will save on packaging, so it’s better aligned with my values and those of Honest Weight’s Food and Product Manual. For another, it’s cost effective, with the price of a cup of tea dropping to a third or less. But the motivation for me to do this right now began with a letter that the Nutrition and Education Committee (NEC) received recently from a Member-Owner. She shared a link to a website that made claims that many brands of tea bags contain plastic. A recent study shows exactly how much leaches from the worst bags into your tea, and you will certainly want to read it if you love those tetrahedral bags!

At first I was in denial that my favorite tea had plastic in the bags, so after I looked at the article, I had to look for data among the brands and varieties that we carry at HWFC. NEC members have placed calls to some of our tea brands to ascertain which information is correct; you will likely want to do the same, especially if you wish to share your concerns with them.

Be assured, many of our tea bags do NOT contain plastic. Equal Exchange, which wasn’t even mentioned in any of the articles expressing concerns about plastics, has a useful blog article on tea bag material, and has made the choice not to use any plastics. Bleach and chemicals are used for a variety of reasons in tea bag materials: •Epichlorohydrin is an epoxy resin (and known carcinogen) that makes paper stronger. •Chlorine dioxide makes paper whiter, is environmentally destructive, and leaves behind a substantial residue in the paper. •Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) and Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) are better for the environment and for you, so you’ll want to look for that if purchasing paper tea bags—many of our tea bags are TCF.

Adhesives or plastics are sometimes used to seal tea bags. These methods may include: •Stitching with fiber •Gluing with adhesives, which may be either a plant-based or a petroleum-based plastic •Heat sealing a plastic or plasticized bag

A tea bag string (if there is one) may be attached by: •Gluing •Stitching •Stapling

The tea bag’s wrapper (not that you drink that, but still…) may be made of: •Paper •Plasticized paper •Foil

HWFC does not provide medical advice. Please check with a health care practitioner before treating any condition. See p. 8 for all policies and full disclaimer. But some brands still do use plastic (or worse!), even where the contents are certified organic. The certification applies to the consumable ingredients, and not the materials used in the paper or fabric, the method of sticking the bag together, or the method of attaching a label and string. I had also wondered for a while what the bleaching methods for the bag material were, and whether the original fiber was organic or not. Guests at my family’s farm have frequently expressed surprise that we put our tea bags in our compost. It turns out their concerns may have been justified.

Tea bag fiber, which long ago might have been real silk, is now generally one of these: •Abaca, fiber from a type of banana plant, is very light and strong without bleach or chemicals. •Hemp fiber is a new addition to the paper lineup and I didn’t find indications either way regarding likely use with plastics. •Paper, from wood pulp fiber or other cellulose sources, is usually bleached, and often may be plasticized to keep it from falling apart in hot water. •Corn starch–based plastic is in frequent use and so far is untested for what happens in hot water. •Food–grade nylon with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is what roomy mesh bags are generally made of. These leak both microplastic and nanoplastic into your tea at temperatures below 170°F, and what’s left behind puts plastic into your garbage.

art by Caroline Corrigan

Are you ready to switch to bulk tea? Brands we carry with tea bags that don't contain plastic: •Equal Exchange •Traditional Medicinals •Numi Teas •Stash •Celestial Seasonings •Pukka •Yogi Tea •Republic of Tea

Brands we carry with tea bags that do still contain plastic: •Tazo (confirmed in a call to the company) •PG Tips (now a fully plant-based plastic)