Many tea companies are beginning to be concerned about how the tea leaves in their products are grown and picked.  Edinburgh Tea really is concerned about where the tea leaves come from in their products.  The text below is directly from Edinburgh Tea. You can read more about this on their official web site.

There are two main ways that we buy our teas – from smallholder co-operatives and gardens.

Most commonly, tea is sold at auctions where the growers get a price based on the taste and appearance as well as supply and demand. The best teas reach the highest prices, and growers are rewarded for quality.

Throughout the year our tea blender, John, works with intermediaries and selects samples of teas sold at auction that are good enough to be used in our blends.

We also buy some of our teas directly. Samples of freshly produced teas are sent to John, where, after tasting samples, we select the ones we like and agree a price directly with the growers.

When we are buying teas, we only buy main grade teas. These are teas that are full of flavour, and don’t leave any dust in the bottom of your cup. Being cleaner means the main grade teas that go into our teabags get to infuse in a slightly more open weaved teabag that let all the flavour out.

There are two main ways that we buy our teas – from smallholder co-operatives and gardens.