A cup of tea,  a traditional afternoon beverage has always been considered a healthier and safer way than coffee, a facilitator of social conversations and most widely used beverage in the world.  But did you know that as the basic common drink, many brands of tea have been harvested and processed in an unsafe manner leaving traces of pesticides and chemicals in your favorite cup of tea?

CBC News recently conducted an investigation on the pesticide levels in some of the most major tea-producing companies. Using an accredited lab, the investigators utilized testing methods employed by the National Food Inspection Agency to test pesticide residues on dry tea leaves. Over half of all leaves tested had pesticide residues above the legally acceptable limit! Multiple chemicals were found in 8 out of 10 teas, with one brand containing over 22 different types of pesticides (Uncle Lee’s Legends of China brand).

A large majority of these pesticides are currently being banned in several countries due to the health risks they pose to works that handle them, and the negative effects they have on the environment (as well as the health of those that consume the products). Greenpeace also released a study exposing many popular brands that contain pesticides residues that some of which even tested positive for DDT, an incredibly toxic pesticide that was banned years ago.

Another round of tests by Glaucus Research that further spoils your cup of tea found that 91% of Celestial Seasonings brand tested had pesticide residues exceeding the U.S. limits. For example, Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape Herbal contained 0.26 ppm of propachlor, which is a known carcinogen under California’s Propsition 65.

The tea companies that were found to contain the highest pesticide levels were as follows, starting with the 8 most popular brands:

Tetley

– Pure Green

– Long Leaf Green

• Twinings

– Classic Assam

– Classic Lady Grey

– English Breakfast

– Earl Grey

Uncle Lee’s Legends of China

– Green Tea

– Jasmine Green

Celestial Seasonings

– Authentic Green

– Antioxidant Max Blackberry Pomegranate

– Antioxidant Max Blood Orange

– Antioxidant Max Dragon Fruit

– English Breakfast Black K-Cup

– Green  Honey Lemon Ginger

– Green Peach Blossom

– Green Raspberry Gardens

– Sleepytime Herbal Teas (Flagship)

– Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape Herbal

Lipton

– Clear Green

– Darjeeling

– Pure Green

– Yellow Label Black

King Cole

– Orange Pekoe

Signal

– Orange Pekoe Two Cups

Less popular brands with pesticides:

Brooke Bond

– Red Label

– Red Label Natural Care

– Red Label Special

– 3 Roses Natural Care

– Taj Mahal

Golden Tips

– Nilgiri Tea

– Pure Darjeeling Tea

– Assam Tea

Goodricke

– Chai Strong CTC Long Leaf

– Roasted Darjeeling – Orange Pekoe

– Thurbo Flavoury Darjeeling

– Thurbo Flavoury Darjeeling

Kanan Devan

Kho Cha

– Darjeeling

– Masala Chai

Royal Girnar Cup 

Tata

– Tata  Gold

– Tata Life

– Tata  Premium

Wagh Bakri

– Good Morning

– Perfect Premium Leaf

– Strong & Refreshing Premium Leaf

It isn’t only pesticides you should be concerned about, either. A lot of these teas contain ingredients like soy, and natural flavours, which are GMO-containing and pose a great health risk to those that consume them.

Back in 2014, Food Babe uncovered that companies such as Celestial Seasonings, TAZO, Teavana, Trader Joe’s, Lipton, Bigelow, Forté and Twinings add “natural flavours” to trick the consumer into thinking they are buying better, cleaner ingredients. Ingredients like natural and/or aritifical flavours are often produced by fractional distillation and chemical manipulation of various chemicals like crude oil or coal tar. Doesn’t sound like something anyone wants in their morning tea.

Also, tea bags are another thing to look out for when purchasing tea. If you can, always look for unbleached, natural fibre tea bags. Unfortunately, a lot of the conventional tea companies out there use bleached tea bags (not the companies I mention below at the end of the article). Not only are they bleached, but some paper tea bags contain the pesticide Epichlorohydrin, a compound used to keep the bags from dissolving in hot water.

There are also increasingly popular “silk” mesh bags and sachets that are made of GMO corn-based plastic (polylactic acid), that can leach harmful chemicals like BPA. While the leaching of BPA and other plastics from these tea bags is quite low, when placing them in boiling water, their leaching potential increases.

The best thing to do is just avoid these toxic teas and tea bags altogether. Below are some options you might want to consider when purchasing tea.

How To Avoid Toxic Chemicals

1. Buy organic, non-GMO certified brand.

2. Check ingredient listings on teas to avoid added flavours and GMO ingredients.

3. Purchase loose leaf, organic tea

5. Make sure your tea bags are unbleached, organic, and made without the use of chemicals like epichlorohydrin.

6. Choose from brands like Organic Traditional Medicinals, Numi Organic, Organic Stash Tea, Choice Organic Teas.

7. Finally, even if you drink 3 cups of tea a day you will still need more antioxidant protection. To receive the ultimate benefit of antioxidants from a green tea, take dietary supplements that guarantee the purest ingredients. We recommend the proprietary Tegreen 97® from Nuskin that includes 97% of Polyphenols and Catechins found naturally extracted from a tip of a green tea leaf which means you get the purest extract and clinically proven by scientific studies to support healthy cell function and structure by neutralizing harmful free radicals.

8. Never buy supplements from third party such a Amazon or E-Bay due to increased cases of counterfeit product that do not guarantee results and purity and quality of ingredients.

To Order Tegreen 97 click here