Love is in the air! Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, we thought we would share with you why we absolutely LOVE our Oolong tea and why it is SUPERIOR to all other teas on the market.
We get asked all the time, “What makes your tea better than what I can get down the street at the grocery store?”
Well, we like to look at it this way. When you are looking to purchase food for your family, you want to make sure what you are ingesting is not poisonous, doesn’t contain a lot of unnecessary chemicals and is healthy, right?
If we have this standard for food, shouldn’t we also have a high standard for our beverages?
The majority of teas found at your local grocery or tea store are a concoction of many different ingredients. These range from the merely gross to the carcinogenic and toxic.
If you are drinking tea for your health, the last things you want are mountains of filthy additives and industrial chemicals.
Read on to find out what has been found in those grocery store teas…
Castoreum
Do you enjoy raspberry-flavored sweetened teas? Well, if you are drinking a non-organic raspberry-flavored tea, there is a good chance you’re drinking castoreum.
What is castoreum?
According to Food Republic¹, it is an artificial flavoring that is extracted from the anal glands of beavers. WHAT?!?
All artificial flavors come from somewhere and some of them are absolutely revolting!
Don’t think ordering a commercial raspberry tea in a restaurant is going to be any better. Given how tea is dispensed in some eateries, you would be appalled at the condition of the tea dispenser that is filling your cup.
A service industry blog, “I Got Stiffed,” claims that the tea dispensers themselves found in restaurants can be absolutely disgusting², and warns that the spouts of the tea dispensers can be neglected (resulting in a nasty buildup of mold and other gunk). ICK!
You may want to reconsider that cup of raspberry tea in the future if you know what’s good for you.
Pesticides
By far the BIGGEST danger to your health found in non-organic teas is pesticides.
Food blogger, Food Babe, points out that most tea isn’t even washed before it is packed into tea bags³.
She explains that the tea, which is regularly sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides, ends up directly in your cup.
Are you familiar with the popular tea company, Celestial Seasonings? You may be startled to know that a third-party study by Glaucus Research4 found that a whopping 91% of Celestial Seasonings tea contained pesticide residues that were over U.S. limits!
Worse yet, an independent lab tested Teavana, another popular teashop in many American malls, and 100% of their teas contained pesticides. YIKES! 62 percent of the teas tested contained traces of endosulfan, a pesticide that has been banned by the U.S., China, the E.U., and 144 other countries because it has been linked to impaired fertility and could harm unborn babies³.
I don’t know about you, but I like to know what I’m ingesting and these are things I like to stay away from!
Natural Flavors
By now, we know what the term “natural flavors” means when it comes to food. It is the sneaky way companies trick the consumer into thinking they are purchasing better, higher quality products. When it comes to tea, companies are covering up the inferior taste and low quality of tea by adding in “natural flavors.”
Basically, you can breakdown anything found in nature and as long as it tastes like the flavor you are after, you can add it to any product and call it “natural flavors” on an ingredient label. Scary!
Next time you see “natural flavor” listed on a label, put the product down and run!
These are only a few of the scary ingredients found in grocery store teas. Beware of some of the other terms listed on that ingredient label, such as, Soy Lecithin, Caramel Powder, Modified Corn Starch, & Artificial Flavors. Check out this informative table from FoodBabe and see if your favorite tea made the list:
So, how can you be certain you are consuming pure tea that doesn’t contain any pesticides, artificial colors/flavorings, or toxins?
That is why we absolutely LOVE our tea! Our oolong tea products contain only one ingredient – 100% Premium Oolong and each harvest is tested to assure the cleanest, highest quality Oolong for our customers.
You absolutely can’t get any better than our tea! Aside from being pesticide, toxin and artificial color/flavoring free, our Oolong is jam-packed full of antioxidants and metabolism boosting EGCG. Plus, Oolong tea has been found to burn twice the amount of calories as green tea.
Who wouldn’t want a purely delicious, metabolism and immune boosting tea that aids in digestion, curbs cravings and helps to regulate insulin spikes and lower cholesterol? Not to mention fights against free radicals that cause aging…what more could you want?
This and many other reasons are why we are absolutely IN LOVE with our WuLong Tea!
Read more about how to AVOID pesticides in your tea cup here.
Yours in Health & Happiness,
Chrissy
References
1 http://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/03/14/6-scary-things-hiding-your-food
2 http://www.igotstiffed.com/1681/tea-at-restaurants-its-pretty-gross/
3 http://foodbabe.com/2013/08/21/do-you-know-whats-really-in-your-tea/
4 https://glaucusresearch.com/consumer-watchdog-reports/