What is your packaging?

Why does t leaf T use stand up pouches? Our stand-up pouches are made from soft-plastic, with a thin foil lining providing a barrier from light, moisture, and air. This barrier is essential to keep our teas in the best possible condition during their shelf life. As flexible packaging, stand-up-pouches ship flat, store flat, and are disposed of flat — reducing materials needed to produce it and the CO2 emissions required to manufacture, ship to us here in New Zealand, and is more efficient than rigid packaging. They can easily be printed directly on which is not true of all rigid packaging and this allows t leaf T to eliminate the need for additional labels. Best of all they can be recycled Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme members here.

Why does t leaf T use non-compostable pouches? At t leaf T we would love to offer a biodegradable and compostable pouch that meets our high standards for ensuring tea quality over our products shelf life, that also can practically be composted or recycled, however there are two main barriers; Firstly, Compostable packaging is not accepted in council kerbside collections and compostable packaging is not recyclable so must end up in the landfill. Secondly, Biodegradable pouches break down in storage. For teas to remain at the optimum flavour they need to be protected against light, aromas, moisture, and oxygen. Biodegradable pouches are designed to break down quickly in the environment, which means they will not provide the same level of protection and shelf-life as traditional packaging materials. We have tested compostable packaging by packing teas like Chai and English Breakfast teas. Over time there was a serious cross contamination of aromas. This reduction in quality is particularly concerning when offering high quality teas where their subtle aromas can easily be affected by stronger smells such as aromatic tea, spices, and coffee stored in the same area as teas and infusions. So practically, t leaf T has made the decision to keep the flavour and quality and food safety integrity of our teas and stick with recyclable soft plastic packaging with a foil barrier, rather than compromise with compostable packaging that we doubt would ever end up being sent to an industrial composting facility. As always, we are on the lookout for a better solution so we will keep looking.