OUR COMPANY’S REASONS FOR OFFERING ONLY ORGANIC TEAS

 

After over 3 decades in the specialty tea business Davidson's Tea now offers only USDA Certified Organic loose leaf teas and tea bags.  We'd like to tell you the story about why we made the transition to organic, a little about the organic process and why we feel this is so important.

Our company is a family operation, and several years ago, we began a thought process which also has become a governing philosophy for our company.   Here's how things evolved.

Our family relishes in good food (and wonderful tea!) as more than just simple nutrition.   While what we eat and drink each day gives us tremendous pleasure, our daily sustenance connects us to the Earth in a fundamental way, like nothing else we can think of.     So early in our lives we developed an avid interest in "from scratch, natural cooking"  and gardening, and we've always had a large vegetable garden with many fruit trees.

Many years ago, now, during a family vacation in Monterey, California, we visited the Organic Farm and Garden Project at UCSC--including their wonderful species garden, containing hundreds of heirloom herbs, flowers and fruit trees.  We learned a lot about organic farming on our tour of the project, as well as much about conventional growing. It seems that the close to 650,000 acres of fertile land in the Salinas Valley produces much of the country's organic and conventional produce.  But that the conventional farming, with all of the pesticides, herbicides and inorganic fertilizers had resulted in the sterility of approximately 10 of the 15 feet of lush topsoil in many areas of the area, as well as threatening contamination of the delicate Monterey Bay ecosystem.  Having lived in Northern California and Northern Nevada most of our lives, and vacationed every summer in Monterey, we were shocked at this information.

And an image stuck in our minds:  during our week's stay in the area we drove by a field of beautiful strawberries each day.  Row after row of perfect plants, growing in what looked to be barren alkali dirt.  And where were the weeds?  Not a single one to be found!  Where was the mulch we had learned about at UCSC?  How was this possible?  Later we discovered the reasons--when we saw the brigade of tanker trucks spraying the fields early one morning.

What we learned that year on our family vacation has changed our lives.  Always interested in "natural" foods, we began the implementation of an "organic lifestyle," easier and easier, as time has passed and availability has improved.  We read everything we could get our hands on about organic food and agriculture--and since that day, we've never looked back.

But what about our business?  We were selling conventionally grown tea!  How was that going to mesh with our new thought process?  We started to ask questions of our overseas suppliers.    Answers were vague. “High grown tea doesn't attract bugs."  "Poor farmers can't afford pesticides."  It depends on the year and the weather--we don't spray very much."

Than the bombshell came.  As the FDA inspects only a small number of incoming overseas containers, our direct imports from tea gardens had never undergone analysis--until one day we received paperwork, listing multiple chemical residues left in the tea we had purchased.  One of them was a pesticide, banned from the US since the 60’s, DDT.

That was it!  We had loved tea all of our lives, loved promoting it, and had always thought of it as a healthy beverage.  The magazines and newspapers were full of stories about this and that scientific study, touting the health benefits of tea--black tea, green tea, white tea, herbal tea...We had vague information.  We wanted to be sure.  We decided to do a small test market of organic teas, long before the implementation of the USDA National Organic Program.  It was a big success.  But which part of our line were we going to promote?  The organic or conventional?  We had such a huge product line--we would have to throw away all of our packaging and inventory, beginning from scratch, just like a new company, but after 25 years in business.

Our son, then a college debater, asked us, "Which side of the argument do you want to be on?" 

The answer was resoundingly clear, and there was no going back.  Our personal commitment was already solid.  We decided to forge ahead.  And the rest is history.  It took us five hard years of work--learning the new rules, revamping our packaging, finding small organic farmers overseas, consulting almost daily with our certifier...Then, finally, in 2006, five years later, we had produced a catalog with  only USDA Certified Organic teas--all of them, over 400 varieties, if you count all of the package sizes.

What began as a personal stance may also have been the most important marketing decision of our business lives.  Because now, years later, the organic market place is thriving.  Groups such the Organic Center (www.organic-center.com) are working tirelessly to "generate credible, peer reviewed scientific information, and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society."  (We were a founding member of this group, and continue to donate a portion of our profits to their invaluable mission.)

Along the way, the logic has clarified further, and now we’d like to share it with you.

All of us know that tea has become more and more associated with its various health benefits.  Each cup that you enjoy, either hot or iced, helps insure those benefits.  Because we talk to many customers each day, we’ve discovered that people drink tea not only because they love it, but also because they want to take advantage of the health benefits they read about—who wouldn’t?  And as we thought about it, it began to make perfect sense to us to provide our customers with only the purest tea available—with no chemical residues of any kind to compromise the purity of the beverage.

You see, unlike a tomato or an apple, tea cannot even be washed after harvesting.  Water initiates the oxidation process, which turns green tea into black or oolong tea, and also develops caffeine and other enzymes.  Water would ruin the colors and integrity of tiny fragile herbs.  If you've ever grown lavender, think of what a few days of rain does to it!  The bottom line, then, is that whatever has been sprayed on the leaves or worked into the soil, brews directly into the cup. 

And because organic tea cost only a few cents more per serving, the logic became very clear to us.  All of our teas should be grown without chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and then processed according to the standards set forth by the National Organic Program.  And now, you can enjoy the most delicious tea available, in its purest form—as nature intended it to be, without any compromise, and still at a very reasonable price.  The most expensive organic tea we offer still costs only pennies per serving.

 

A WORD ABOUT ORGANIC PROCESSING

Oothu Organic Tea Estate- South India

For those of you interested in how the process behind the USDA Organic Icon...here's a brief description of how it works.

- We work with only farmers and producers, primarily in China, Sri Lanka, India, Egypt and Eastern Europe, with strong commitments to organic farming and National Organic Program Certification.

- All teas, spices, herbs and natural flavors are authorized ahead of time by our organic certifier, based on supplier certification and labeling.

- When ingredients come into our warehouse, they begin a strict handling procedure, including a series of lot coding, aimed at absolute traceability by the consumer. The records begin in our receiving department and end in our shipping department, with back up all along the way.

- Once a year our certifier inspects our facility.  Part of the procedure involves a random selection of individual products, each of which must adhere to every rule.  Our organic certificate renews annually.  This process allows us to offer you with certainty that our products comply with all of the organic program guidelines.

 

THERE ARE MANY ADDITIONAL REASONS FOR CHOOSING ORGANIC

 

- Organic farmers act as stewards of our land, using century’s old methods for growing without harmful chemicals.  These include techniques such as crop rotation, growing plants that pests do like next to plants that pests don’t like, mulching and soil treatment and homeopathic sprays made from organic herbs.  Organic tea projects in all over the world, for instance, have returned barren regions, made sterile from chemicals, to rich and fertile growing areas, with naturally aerated soil, teaming with earthworms. 

 

- Organic farmers protect waterways and ground water from harmful contamination.

 

- And organic farming protects birds and other wildlife from that same contamination.

 

- Organic farming also protects those organic farmers, who are helping all of us, while taking care of the environment.  They, their families and their own animals avoid exposure to chemicals which might harm them.

 

- Organic farming, under the National Organic Program, forbids controversial gmos, or genetically modified organisms.  When it comes to tea, gmos can sometimes be found in the flavors used for non-organic tea.

 

- Davidson’s has a firm policy against the use of gmos, and you’ll never find them in our flavored teas.

 

In general, organic tea, as part of all organic farming, helps promote the health and sustainability of all life and of our planet.  We proudly donate a portion of our profits to The Organic Center, an arm of the Organic Trade Association.  This wonderful group’s mission is to “generate credible, peer reviewed scientific information and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society.”

Thanks for reading about our organic philosophy. The process which came from our hearts has ended in one of the world's largest selections of USDA Certified Tea--in over 150 delicious varieties, from dedicated farmers all over the word, blended with care in our facility.   We're delighted to offer you organic tea!   As always, please feel free to call with any questions about our organic program—or about tea in general.  We won’t put you through a voice mail maze, and we’re happy to help answer any questions about tea that you may have!

In 2007 Davidson's formed a strategic alliance with the oldest and largest group of organic tea gardens in India.  These estates grow and produce some of the most exceptional teas available anywhere in the world.  Within a few weeks of harvest we receive these various fresh and flavorful tea varieties here in our Nevada facility, where they undergo further organically certified processing and packaging.  Now, with absolute certainty, we can guarantee the freshest, purest and most delicious organic teas, anywhere to be found!

John and Sharon Davidson