In response to the recent concerns circulating regarding the leachate contamination by microplastics being released by tea bags during the steeping process, Australian Tea Masters, a conscientious tea blending and distribution company founded in 2011, have felt compelled to address the issue.
Let’s explain how we have avoided this problem since we started bagging our loose teas.
Tea bags should be healthy and sustainable.
As a professional tea educator and business owner, I aim to source the highest quality tea products and implement stringent quality controls in our factory. When we began looking into bagging teas, we were extremely careful about the materials we selected.
Our company spent months doing extensive research into the tea bag materials being used around the world and were aware of the issues around contamination.
We discovered that nylon and polyethylene terephthalate bags, which are petroleum-based non-biodegradable plastics, were releasing concerning amounts of microparticles and nanoparticles into tea when brewed at higher temperatures.
The fact that they’re not biodegradable also makes them a serious pollutant in the environment.
We looked for a better solution for our tea bags, and found it.
As a result of our findings, we managed to source a safe product and solution to the contamination problem. Yamanaka Industry Co, Ltd has created a fully biodegradable material called Soilon™.
Soilon is composed of bio-based, non-oil-based biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) derived from plants. We have been using this product for all of our tea bags since we began bagging tea. We believe this type of fabric should be the industry standard.
The current concerns circulating regarding contamination are not only a concern to the general population and the tea industry, but also to our company. We are concerned that there is an increasing assumption that all tea bags with a similar appearance to the Nylon bags are made of the same material when this isn’t true.
Actually, companies like ours are spending a lot of time and resources to research and deliver a more health-conscious, environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and sustainable solution.
We have also taken the time and effort to have our factory HACCP, export approved, Halal, Kosher, and organic certified, so we consider having the safest and best tea bag material of utmost importance.
