Plastic in Your Green Tea? Here’s How You May Be Having Your Drink Wrong

Not too long ago, I decided to begin my day on a healthy note, and one of the changes I made was to switch to green tea. Little did I know that I was drinking plastic particles along with my cuppa!

Yes, tea bags contain traces of plastic, and if not for the environment, we need to stop using them to avoid health risks.

While regular milk-infused chai has never been… well, my cup of tea, when I tasted green tea for the first time, it was like a whole new world opening up. I was no longer restricted to one flavour and could experiment with jasmine, tulsi, mint, Kashmiri saffron, and so many more.

One major benefit of green tea is that if taken in the right quantity, it is a very healthy drink.

But that also begs the question⁠—what are the side effects of drinking green tea?

For one, if you are using tea bags, you are also drinking microplastic from your cup. Now, who ordered that for breakfast?

A study by the McGill University in Canada recently found out that our tea bags are not as safe as was believed to be.

Their research process involved taking tea bags from four different commercial brands, cutting them open and removing the tea leaves. Following this, the tea bags were washed and heated in water.

It was observed that the plastic contents of the bags broke down into microplastics and nanoplastics⁠⁠—with the latter being less than 100 nanometres in size. (The diameter of a human hair is approximately 75,000 nanometre.)

The team then used electron microscopy and observed that one tea bag released 11.6 billion microplastic particles and 3.1 billion nano plastic particles at a brewing temperature.

Go for plastic-free green tea. Go for tea leaves. Click here to browse from a wide range of organic brews to make your day healthy!

What do we drink then, if not green tea?

You don’t need to deny yourself the pleasure of drinking a freshly-brewed cup of green tea at all.

Just, discard the tea bag and switch to organic, healthy tea leaves instead.

Trust me; the benefits will soon triumph over the delusion of convenience that tea bags offer.

• To begin with, you can choose the amount of tea that you would like to brew⁠—make your tea light or strong, just the way you like it!
• Also, this year, the FSSAI has banned the use of stapler pins in tea bags. So, why would you want to use something that has a banned product attached to it?!
• Tea bags need to be thrown out after use. If you are a super conscious waste segregator (yay!), you have to cut the bag open, throw the leaves in one bin and the bag into another. This process also leaves you with wet, sticky fingers. On the other hand, tea leaves can just be dumped into your plant pots, the strainer washed and…done!
• Invest in a pretty strainer, and you can make your cup look beautiful even when the green tea is still brewing. This antique brass tea strainer, for example, will give a rustic look to your cuppa.

Excited to make the switch? Click here to choose from your favourite green tea flavours.

But are you restricted for choice with loose tea leaves?

Absolutely not! In fact, Udyan Tea, an organic tea brand, offers dozens of flavours, including jasmine jade green, imperial earl grey, Kashmiri saffron and liquorice melody. You can check out their products by clicking on this link.

If you are someone who likes conventional teas, Just Organik has the black Assam flavour, ginger tulsi, and masala tea. Check out their products here.

You can check out a range of such amazing aromatic flavours and choose from your favourites. Just click here for a world of organic, healthy green teas!

You may also like: Don’t Dump Used Tea Leaves, Coffee Grounds! 6 Things You Can Do With Them Right Now

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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