All OMGTea products are 100% organic. Our supplier in Japan was one of the first to start growing organic tea back in 1978 and continues to support sustainable land management that preserves soil fertility in the long term, keeping the impact on the environment to a minimum. 

You may choose to buy organic for health or ethical reasons or that may not even be a consideration in your purchase decision. Beyond health and ethics, though, organic farming practices result in numerous environmental benefits, including reduced exposure to pesticides and chemicals, healthier soil (with helpful bacteria), reduced soil erosion and, water conservation and health. It also supports animal health and welfare and a healthy organic agriculture system can reduce carbon dioxide and help slow climate change.

Another consideration is that matcha is the only kind of tea that uses the entire leaf and therefore, it offers health benefits and environmental advantages that other varieties of tea do not.

Tea only requires harvesting the plant’s leaves meaning that…

“A typical tea plant that is used to produce matcha can live for a half-century or more, making it one of the most sustainable and environmental food crops in existence.”

Furthermore, by using the whole leaf, matcha requires less waste than other types of tea, which only use part of the leaf and only for an extract with the bag or leaves discarded after use.

Sustainable Business Practices

At OMGTea, caring for the planet is at the heart of what we do. We’re constantly looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact and make our business more sustainable — going well beyond just being organic.

Here are some of the steps we’re taking:

• Reducing waste – from our packaging to our everyday operations, we work to cut down on waste wherever we can.
• Using raw materials responsibly – we only use what’s necessary and avoid excess packaging.
• Choosing sustainable packaging – our labels are made from FSC-approved paper, and our tins are made from recyclable tinplate.
• Reusing materials – we give packing materials a second life by reusing what we receive from our suppliers for our own shipments.
• Optimising our supply chain – by consolidating orders and shipping by container, we reduce our carbon footprint and improve efficiency.

As a small business, we know we can’t do everything — but we’re committed to doing what we can, as responsibly as we can.

Balancing Sustainability with Consumer Needs

OMGTea is a health company first and foremost and from the very beginning, founder Katherine Swift’s vision has been to help people lead healthier lives by spreading the word about the many benefits of incorporating matcha into our daily lives. Katherine also founded The Healthy Life Foundation, a charity that funds research into age-related disease, to further help people live healthier lives for longer.

In her quest to have a positive impact on the health of others, Katherine wanted to move matcha, still relatively niche at that time, into the mainstream. In 2018 and with this in mind, she developed a range of ready-to-drink Iced Matcha products. The products, packed in a plastic bottle, had a unique dosing chamber where the matcha was stored separately to maintain freshness and a twist-cap mechanism that allowed consumers to mix the matcha with the water just before consuming. If the matcha had been premixed, it would have oxidised and degraded its precious nutrients.

The innovative product gained significant interest from consumers and trade customers alike, but a key challenge was the packaging. The original bottle and cap were plastic, 100% recyclable plastic but nonetheless, it was intended as a trial pack until we found a more sustainable packaging option. Unfortunately, however, a more sustainable option was not possible with the financial resources OMGTea, as a small business, had or for our projected volumes. After two years of researching alternative options, including bottles made from sugar cane, development of a bespoke cap, etc., we took the hard decision to discontinue the product at the beginning of 2021. The use of single use plastic doesn’t align with the values of the business and isn’t what we thought our consumers would want to see from OMGTea.