Drinking Tea in Groups is Good for the Environment!

Drinking Tea in Groups is Good for the Environment!

As you know, we learned that by delivering our teas in our new paperboard canisters (instead of our previous steel containers), we cut the carbon footprint of tea delivery by approximately 80%. We’re very excited about this, but, of course, it’s only one piece of the story. We also learned that, pound-for-pound, the energy required to brew the tea once it reached the customer rivaled that of delivering it to them in the first place (in our new-and-improved packaging)!

Now, unless your super-power is to boil water spontaneously, energy will certainly be required to boil (or nearly boil) water to brew tea in the traditional fashion. So what’s an environmentally-conscious tea drinker to do? Here are a few suggestions:

• Only heat as much water in your kettle as you need for the amount of tea you’re making. In other words, don’t boil a full kettle for a single cup of tea!
• If you’re making iced tea, experiment with cold-brewing your tea in the refrigerator (results may vary depending upon the type of tea you’re brewing, however).
• If you’re going to be brewing tea one cup at a time over the course of a day, consider using an insulated electric kettle instead of the stove — we haven’t tested this one yet, but I have a suspicion that it would result in lower energy consumption.
• Last, but not least, make the most of that energy used to heat your water, and brew tea in groups - it’s certainly going to be more efficient to brew one large pot of tea than several individual cups!

From: http://www.arborteas.com/teablog/category/tea-fun/
Drinking Tea in Groups is Good for the Environment!