Why Ethically Sourced Tea Matters
At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® we follow a straightforward but oft-neglected principle: if you want the highest-quality products you must invest time and money into the laborers and creatives making those products. In our case, we always knew we wanted to bring gourmet tea stateside, and in order to provide you the tastiest, richest cup of tea we also knew that we needed to work directly with farmers for ethically sourced tea from seed to cup.
What Sets The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® Teas Apart?
Our experts use their considerable knowledge of tea sourcing to locate and nurture relationships with tea farms in Sri Lanka, Kenya, India, China, Thailand, and Japan. We work directly with private, family-owned tea estates so quality control is hands-on and guaranteed throughout the entire cultivation process.
What Are Single Origin / Small Batch Teas?
At The Coffee Bean® we serve only single origin, small batch teas. This means that the tea leaves in that batch all came from one country, and from one single tea estate. Since our teas are 100% hand-plucked, the tea batches are typically produced in smaller quantities and are special runs, usually custom-made and not manufactured on a large scale.
How Does The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® Select Its Family-Owned Gardens?
We’ll provide an example — a few years ago a tea grower from Kenya came to our offices trying to sell his teas. After we tested his batch and provided feedback the tea grower returned six months later with a much-improved product.
The conversation turned to his workers, and we realized that the families working at the tea garden needed a nursery school constructed nearby. Working together with the grower, we built a nursery school and launched a tea from their garden at our stores. By eliminating middlemen, we are able to forge important relationships and improve the lives of the people responsible for growing our incomparable teas.
Why Does Ethically Sourced Tea Matter to The Coffee Bean?
It’s pretty simple — ethically sourced tea is the right thing to do. We can source and deliver the world’s finest, most distinctive teas while maintaining a manufacturing and sourcing footprint we can be proud of. By always striving for 100% traceability for our teas, we have positively impacted the lives of the farmers we work with. Our methods ensure the environment is treated in a sustainable way and the workers are provided a generous and highly livable wage.
What Are Teas With a Purpose?
Call us crazy, but we love going the extra mile to care for everyone involved in crafting our teas from the soil to your cup. We have invested in social and sustainability programs from point-of-origin through the tea-buying process to help out our entire The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® family. These programs include buying only from local co-ops that have sustainable growing practices and programs that benefit our growers; educational resources to build a better future for students in our local Los Angeles area; and opportunities for baristas to grow in their career like our signature barista competition.
Stop by your local The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® today for an ethically sourced tea or coffee.
