The Teahead Mission
Teahead was formed with a very simple goal – share with the Canadian public that tea can be so much more than just a convenient and bland-tasting hot liquid from the confines of a teabag. We were extremely excited when that vision was vindicated upon receiving the Canada Starts grant, sponsored by Canadian business leaders Ownr, Staples, Shopify and Moneris. Out of over 1000 applicants, we are proud to call ourselves one of only 40 recipients. While we felt elated by the grant, we also knew we no longer had any excuse to stand by and do nothing while Canadians were sold such sub-par product.
This post is dedicated to providing a bit more information about why we feel the way we do, and will hopefully serve as a minor educational resource regarding our platform, our goals, and about tea in general.
Are Teabags Actually Worse?
The first question that many people questioning our motives or ethic might have is likely to be this one. The question here has a more subtle conclusion than may first appear; of course not every commonly sold teabag is worse per gram than its commonly sold loose-leaf tea counterpart. To say that would be extremely hyperbolic.
There can in fact be many delicious and high-quality bagged teas, but by and large it is the case that the minerals, vitamins, and other bio-active benefits (most importantly flavor) are limited by teabags, especially in more delicate teas like greens and whites. Moreover, commodity teabags contain micro-plastics, and contribute to our world's continued environmental degradation, something that we do our utmost to prevent in our own commercial practices.
Teabags also tend to be made of bulk-produced tea from unethical sources produced by conglomerates who care nothing for the people growing the tea, let alone the tea itself. This is why bags tend to sit in warehouses for long periods of time, degrading the poor-quality leaf even further. Pesticides are often also used at levels that exceed those allowable by consumer authorities for these teas. The simple fact is that teabags, and many of these companies, have a long and spotted history of doing very little for tea itself despite their public appearances.
Be the Change You Want to See
We are not zealots in pursuit of some tea perfection, we just believe that the bar is set extremely low for camellia sinensis in Canada, and we want to raise it. At Teahead, we want every moment you spend with tea and teaware to matter as much as possible, and to do our utmost to reduce our carbon footprint in the process.
This is why all of our tea is ethically sourced from individual tea farmers, why our packaging is entirely biodegradable, and why we will never shackle our loose-leaf tea's potential by grinding it up into dust and putting it into teabags.
At Teahead we are obsessed with all things tea, and proud of it. We take it seriously, so that our members and customers know when they buy with us they are buying the best quality tea, in the most eco-friendly packaging, from hardworking and proud tea farmers with a generational commitment to excellence.
