Our Commitment to Ethical Tea

Every tea we sell comes from distributors that are either a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) or heavily involved with and influenced by the ETP, with audited Codes of Conduct based on guidelines from the International Labor Organization and the Human Rights Declaration of the UN. 

We're like you: for us, tea is more than just a beverage, it is an experience.

And as such, we have to be sure that we understand where this experience begins: worlds away and in the hands of dedicated, hard-working peoples who haven't always been treated ethically.  People who spend their lives and raise children on tea plantations, facing the elements and lending the wisdom of generations so that we may sip our Darjeelings, our Assams, our oolongs.

When the movement of fair trade came into view, it was a step forward for it sought to ensure stable profits for local tea producers. However, this was (and is) not enough as it still left room for undesirable practices, environmental harm, and/or social injustice.

Enter the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP).

Founded in 1997, the ETP was born out of a need for a system to oversee the tea industry and ensure that it was operating ethically.  Today, ETP is primarily concerned with the social and environmental aspects of the tea industry.  In a snapshot, ETP creates a fairer, better, more sustainable tea industry for workers, farmers and the environment by:

• Improving the lives and incomes of tea workers, farmers and their communities
• Empowering women
• Helping address environmental challenges and responding to climate change