Our world revolves around tea. Naturally, we take it seriously.
Quality is paramount. We work closely with tea farmers and artisans around the world, making sure that the teas we import are properly cured and cared for before arriving in our shops.
Instead of seeking enormous tea conglomerates, which treat tea as a commodity similar to wheat or soybeans, we partner with much smaller operations. Our allies primarily champion tea character rather than just profit.
Health stands as another Ku Cha House of Tea foundation. We sell products that people brew and consume. The idea of sending customers products that detract from health repels us.
Organic tea a key part of our shop
This devotion to quality and health leads us toward organic teas, among other things. At least 66 of our teas contain nothing but certified organic ingredients. Many more contain mostly organic ingredients.
Commercial teas have come under scrutiny in recent years, and revelations about pesticides in some popular brands is alarming. A 2018 study by Canada’s CBC (the country’s version of our PBS or Great Britain’s BBC) showed that eight out of 10 popular brands of green and black tea contained multiple chemicals. Half of them contained levels pesticide in excess of permitted limits.
As mentioned earlier, we do not work with large commercial tea growers. Our teas are of the highest quality, fussed over by careful farmers and artisans around the world.
When we have a choice, however, we always buy tea that endures the rigorous USDA Certified Organic testing and standards regime. We think the USDA Organic program is an inspiration, a model for agriculture worldwide.
We especially embrace the federal program’s commitment to pesticide-free farming. Toxic chemicals don’t belong in the ground, our waterways and in our food.
We don’t have the space here to explore all of our teas with organic ingredients. But we can examine a cross-section of our teas, from countries around the world.
Organic Sencha – Japan
People associate Japan with matcha, and for good reason — the fluorescent green powdered tea captured the imaginations of cooks, bakers, bartenders and tea lovers around the world.
But sencha, not matcha, is the most popular style of tea in Japan. One key difference: While both are green teas, matcha is ground into a powder. Sencha, on the other hand, is tea leaves.
Tea artisans in Shizuoka, Japan, pick the tea leaves for our Organic Sencha in early spring, when they are most delicate. They then steam and lightly roll the leaves, resulting in a refreshing sweet taste with a lingering buttery finish. Where many green teas are powerfully grassy, our organic sencha’s notes are more modest.
Organic Darjeeling First Flush – India
India produces a range of popular teas. In fact, common teas like English Breakfast and Earl Grey rely upon tea from India, as well as many commercial teas found in tea bags on grocers shelves.
We appreciate teas from India — the best ones offer strong flavors while also containing myriad subtleties and surprises.
Our Organic First Flush Darjeeling represents the first harvest in Darjeeling every year, at high elevation, beginning in late-February following spring rains. The most interesting Darjeelings — that includes this one — offer the complex flavors of the Muscatel grape.
Darjeeling differs from most other Indian teas in that it comes from traditional Camellia sinensis sinensis plants, the kind of tea grown across China, Japan and other parts of the world. Most Indian teas, however, come from broader-leafed Camellia sinsnsis assamica plants.
Organic Gunpowder
This style of tea from China’s Fujian Province gets its name from its appearance, although its bold flavor also contributes to the name’s resonance. Long before gunpowder tea turns into a warm beverage, tea artisans wither, steam, roll and dry them. When the process is complete, the little balls of tea look a bit like gunpowder.
We love our Organic Gunpowder tea it in the morning, when our foggy brains need a strong nudge before they begin wrestling with the day. The tea is widely exported to the Maghreb, a region of North Africa that includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. There, mainly in Morocco, it is blended with mint leaves. The combination of gunpowder tea and mint fuels Moroccans across the day. In fact, tea consumption per capita in Morocco is fifth in the world, at 2.68 pounds, behind Turkey, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Russia.
Organic Keemun Monkey
China’s eastern Anhui Province is the source of our Organic Keemun Monkey tea, a sweet-tasting, smooth tea with a translucent rust color, nutty and malty undertones and floral fragrances.
Keemun teas, first produced in the 19th century, are famously non-astringent, with undertones of cocoa.
We find the complex, rich flavors in our Organic Keemun Monkey work especially well as iced tea.
Organic Peony White
This gorgeous Organic Peony White tea from southern China’s Fujian Province, also called Pai Mu Tan, is so floral it is named after a favorite spring flower.
As with all white teas, oxidation is minimal. In the case of Peony White, artisans take young buds and leaves in early spring, and then quickly wither and dry them in the sun.
The lack of oxidation makes the leaves and the brewed tea itself pale — it is oxidation that gives tea its range of colors, some of which are as dark as coal.
The tea may be pale, but not the flavor. It is delicate and subtle, but also alive with floral aromas and a rich, sweet flavor.
Organic Rooibos Provence
From Japan, India and China we now head far south, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, to organic tea from South Africa.
It delights us that all of the ingredients in this delicious tea — rooibos (a South African shrub), rosehip, blueberry, rose petals and lavender — achieved the USDA Certified Organic seal of approval.
With its whisper of lavender, this tea evokes the southern French region of Provence, where fields of lavender blanket the landscape.
It’s another wonderful iced tea, too. The combination of flowers, fruit and leaves when brewed and iced is so thirst-quenching that we find ourselves gulping it on hot summer days. In other words, we have been gulping it quite a bit for the past few weeks!
