Our Philosophy

Organic Tea Leaf specialises in the supply of only certified organic teas, with one of the worlds largest varieties of organic tea available from one place. Organic Tea Leaf is a union of specialists comprising botanists, horticulturalists, herbalists and master tea blenders.

We choose only the finest product nature produces. Quality is our priority but also our ethic. We seek out the finest tea plantations and herb farms, free of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Hand harvested and prepared by the most natural and sustainable means. Strict organic growing standards ensure that our leaf contains the same pure and health giving constituents as they did in ancient times.

Freshness, Flavour and Vigour are the consistent markers at Organic Tea Leaf. We deliver the whole leaf to the customer with as little processing as possible to preserve the plants aroma and purity. Our Speciality Blends are hand blended without the use of any industrial machinery that degrades the quality of the tea.

We hold the utmost respect for our teas and honour and respect the growers who work at source. Tea is endemic in cultures of the east for over 5000 years and in the western Celtic culture for the last 400 years. Today true tea quality comes from the organic loose leaf, not highly processed powder put into a teabag. Please take time to view our teas on this site and discover real tea.

Our Clientele

We supply the Finest Tea Houses, 5 star Hotels, Award winning cafes, Luxury spas and Exquisite restaurants.

Our pre-packaged organic loose leaf teas are sold by health stores, select spas and respected food venues.

Our Quality

At the beginning of our venture Organic Tea Leafs experts sat around a table and asked the questions "should all our teas be organic?" the answer came with the backing of science and tradition, and it was concluded that " all our teas must be Organic!"

Since our inception Organic Tea Leaf has questioned the quality of existing conventional teas produced with the aid of destructive synthetic chemicals. These chemicals devastate not only the soil used to cultivate tea (and any other food), but systematically destroy the surrounding ecosystem and the health of the very people who farm the land.

It remains the goal of Organic Teas Leaf to raise awareness across an industry dominated by conventionally cultivated tea to the benefits of sourcing of organic teas. We ask consumers to look for the Organic Certification Seal on your tea packet to ensure that your tea was grown and processed according to the National Organic Standards.

Here are a few reasons why:

Improved soil fertility

Toxic chemicals are bypassed, freeing soil from exposure to harmful herbicides and pesticides. Workers instead rely on substances such as compost, natural organic matter, and plants to provide the necessary ground cover and nutrients. Weeds and insects are controlled with traditional techniques such as crop rotation, mulching, and the encouragement of "beneficials" - such as extra, pest-controlling spiders. Organic soil also has far more earthworms and soil microbes.

Studies show that healthy, live soil at an organic tea garden returns far higher crop yields per unit of energy and fertilizer expended than conventional farming methods. Diversity is healthy.

Better for wildlife

Organic cultivation of tea is better for local wildlife. The Soil Association, an international organization for organic cultivation, notes that a typical organic field has five times as many wild plants, 57 percent more animal species, and 44 percent more birds than a conventionally cultivated farm. Conventional synthetic herbicides and pesticides often kill non-target animals, plants, and insects.

The Times of India reported that at least 10 leopards and five elephants died between 1999 and 2001 due to leakage of pesticides from tea gardens in West Bengal. Certainly more have died since then. When mixed with other solvents, these pesticides exert a massive toxic effect on the environment for a long duration, affecting birds, animals and humans.

Safer for humans

If organic farming is safer for wildlife, it is certainly safer for the workers in the tea gardens. On conventional tea estates, the health security for the workers is very low. According to Oxfam, a British non-profit agency working to put an end to poverty world-wide, the spraying of pesticides on tea estates is often done by untrained casual daily wage workers, sometimes even by children and adolescents, who are illiterate and cannot read the warnings on the containers.

Many tea farmers spray their plants upwards of 15 to 20 times each year depending on pest infestations. Most of the chemicals they are using (such as - Aldrin 20E, Carbofuran 30, Endosulfan 35 EC, Malathion 50 EC, Tetradifon 8 EC, Calixin 80 EC) are listed as hazardous and toxic, and a number of them are banned in western countries. Despite the dangers of exposure to toxic materials, workers frequently are barefoot and in shorts rather than protected by recommended safety gear such as masks, gloves, rubber boots, and polythene aprons.

Organic Tea Leafs response

Ultimately, the decision to buy organic products is a choice you make for yourself. If you were to buy a conventional apple at the shop, you'd be sure to wash it off before eating it. With tea, though, the first time you "wash" the leaves is when you brew the tea to drink it. Tea should be your medicine like in the old days, not part of your daily toxin exposure.

When people here at Organic Tea Leaf are asked, "Why are you organic?" our response is quick. The answer is easy. "How could we be anything other than organic?"

Our Safety

To ensure the safety standards of all our teas Organic Tea Leaf demand that there is a thorough lab analysis of each batch by Gas Chromatography to safeguard our customers against any possible contamination.

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AMEDARO - alternative medicine, herbal treatment, organic herbs, biodynamic food and health products

Why medicinal teas must be grown organically

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By Gabriel MacSharry B.Sc., B.Herb.Med, B.E

After many years researching herbal medicines, and what improves their efficacy in treating illness, I have come to the conclusion that it is essential to use organically grown plants if one is going to use herbs as medicine. Herbal medicine is big business world wide now and with big business comes big corporations mass producing product, using raw materials that are grown using fungicide and pesticide chemicals and after harvesting they are then manufactured inappropriately. The resulting product will have little medicinal value.

The basic truths of herbal medicine have been known since antiquity but, recently, reductionist analysis has helped explain much of it in modern terms. We now know that key phytochemicals essential to a plant in order for it to become a good herbal medicine in most cases is based on its content of Secondary Metabolites. Secondary metabolites are organic compounds that are not directly involved in the normal growth, development or reproduction of plants. Unlike primary metabolites, absence of secondary metabolities results not in immediate death, but in long-term impairment of the organism's survivability/fecundity(1).

Secondary Metabolites

The immobility of plants in diverse and changing physical environments, along with the possibility of attack from animals and pathogens, has necessitated the development of numerous chemical mechanisms for protection and offence. These chemical mechanisim are its secondary metabolites. Under most conditions, plants produce several thousands of these compounds, and invest huge amounts of their metabolic energy, sometimes up to 90% of their nitrogen resource, into producing them.

Secondary Metabolites are usually produced in response to even low level competition. In the semi-sterile cultivations favoured by non-organic chemical methods of farming, plants have no effective competition and so no need to produce these compounds. In the total absence of natural competition, selection pressures favour the production of plant mass either devoid of, or with reduced proportions of these metabolically expensive compounds. One consequence of this is that even though they may give an impression of quality, the appearance and color of an herb are not necessarily indicators of its therapeutic quality. Indeed, plants grown under adverse conditions may sometimes have a poor appearance but higher levels of secondary metabolites.

In recent years considerable attention has been paid to the specific ecological roles of secondary metabolites, which were often formerly regarded as waste products (2).

Alkaloids

Alkaloids are thought to play a defensive role in plants against herbivores and pathogens(3). The alkaloids are said to be the active constituent responsible for the stomachic(has a medicinal action on the stomach) action of the herb Wild Yam (Dioscorea spp.)(4). Atropine is an alkaloid and main active constituent of Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna). Alkaloids are central to the effece of other medicinal herbs such as Damiana (Turnera diffusa) and Celery seed (Apium graveolens)

Glucosinolates

Glucosinolates play a role in protecting the plant against insect attack(5). Black Mustard contains the compound ‘sinigrin’ and White Mustard contains ‘sinalbin’, both of which are metabolised to glucosinolates. These glucosinolates are thought to be key to the rubafacient action of the herb.

Tannins

Tannins act to preserve the wood in living trees from microbial decomposition and insects(6). Tannins are key constituents of the following medicinal herbs Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa), Green tea (Camellia sinensis), St john's wort (Hypericum perforatum) and Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria).

Several classes of secondary metabolites are induced by infection, wounding or grazing. Variation in the speed and extent of such induction may account at least in part for the differences between resistant and susceptible varieties(7). Both salicylic and jasmonic acids have been implicated as signals in such responses. Toxic chemicals formed in response to damage, especially from fungal attack, are called phytoalexins(6). In legumes, secondary metabolites are involved in interactions with beneficial microorganisms (flavonoids as inducers of Rhizobium symbiosis) and in defence against pathogens (isoflavoniond phytoalexins)(8)

Plants have also developed defence against other plants, a phenomenon known as ‘allelopathy’. Many compounds are implicated, including phenolics(9) and terpenoids(10), again both key active constituents in medicinal herbs.

Positive interaction, or facilitation, among plants is also becoming increasingly recognized(11). UK based company Natures Defence are currently researching this phenomenon. Chief research Anthony Daniels recently told me that a current focus of research is on a gaseous defence mechanism that exists in plants. “If a plant is being attacked by pest or fungus it secrets a certain gas that initiates the production of secondary metabolites in neighbouring plants exposed to the gas”. This is amazing as it shows that there is a very intelligent communication mechanism between plants that result in the production of more (protective) medicinal constituents within the plants, when there is a pest or fungus in the area.

Research on Secondary Metabolites is in its infancy, but so far it has indicated very strongly that if one is going to use herbs medicinally then they should be either grown organically or wild crafted to maximise the potential of the plant as a medicine. This can also be extrapolated to all other members of the plant kingdom too, specifically your fruits and vegetables.

Gabriel MacSharry
Nutritionist & Medical Herbalist

Reference

(1) Gibson, Shawn. University of Saskatchewan, Pl Sci 416, 2002
(2) Mills and Bone, Principles and Practice of Phototherapy; Modern herbal medicine, Edinburgh, 2000, Churchill Livingstone
(3) Castells E, Penuelas J. Towards a global theory of chemical defence: the case of alkaloids(French). Orsis 1997; 12:141-161
(4) Bruneton, J, 1995, Pharmacology, Phytochemistry, Medicinal Plants, Lavoisier, Paris, France, p 546
(5) Oleszek W. Glucosinolates: occurrence and ecological significance. Wiadomosci Botaniczne 1995; 39(1-2):49-58
(6) Laks PE. Wood preservation as trees do it. Scottish Forestry 1991; 45(4): 275-284
(7) Bennett RN. Tansley review no. 72
(8) Dixon RA. Metabolic engineering: prospects for crop improvement through the genetic manipulation of phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and defence response: a review. Gene 1996;179(1):61-71
(9) Inderijt. Plant phenolics in allelopathy. Botanical Review 1996; 62(2):186-202
(10) Langenheim HJ. Higher plant terpinoild: a phytocentric overview of their ecological roles. Journal of Chemical Ecology 1994;20(6) : 1223-1280
(11) Callaway R. Positive interactions among plants. Botanical Review 1995;61(4): 306-349

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