At TEA TRIBES, we believe that taking care of your health means saying no (and forever) to synthetic flavors, added sugars, colorants and preservatives.
Explanations:
As you know, they are widely used in the tea industry. This allows manufacturers to guarantee the same taste from one tin to the next.
Some dare to display "natural aroma" on their tins, playing on a great ambiguity (the kind that irritates us at TEA TRIBES...). This means that the flavoring imitates the taste of a naturally-occurring fruit or flower, but in no way that the product has this aroma naturally.
In other words: with synthetic molecules and no natural products, you can invent a "vanilla flavoring" and claim the "natural flavoring" label.
At TEA TRIBES, of course, you'll never see this claim, because we don't use any added flavorings. This means that, depending on the season and the ripening of the leaves, dried fruits, flowers and roots we use, the taste and fragrance of our products change significantly.
That's just the way nature is.
You're free to use it if you like. But remember: we never add any to our preparations.
Our infusions and teas are good as they are.
About colorants and preservatives
Here again, no.
The colors of our plants may seem a little dull to you, but they're the result of natural oxidation during outdoor drying. This is normal, and it's just as well. The taste is there. Purity and authenticity, too.
As for storage, if you feel like waiting 3 or 4 years before tasting your infusion, that's up to you. This is a product with a very low moisture content (around 7%) that keeps very well. But we're not going to tell you any stories: your infusion will taste much better if you consume it within 6 months of purchase.
Most of the plants we use come from wild harvesting, carried out in a rational manner: the pickers touch neither the roots nor the trunks, so that they can return to the same place the following season.
And when they can be cultivated, our plants come from small family farms that use no chemicals.
The use of GMOs is absolutely forbidden. This is part of the specifications that our Tea-Tribers must scrupulously follow when sourcing locally.
About BIO
At the start of our adventure, we thought we'd be able to source everything organically. Well, not at all. We realized that many natural products, gathered from the wild or produced by families on small farming units, have neither the need nor the means to apply for organic certification (which is an audit of methods, not results). Their natural products are therefore sold on the basis of their good reputation, and this works quite well.
Of course, whenever possible, we use components from certified organic farming, but the best solution is to prefer wild harvesting. This is the best guarantee that the plant is close to absolute purity. And in the absence of wild harvesting, we only use people we know, respect and visit.