Tea · Infusions · Functional blends
The wellness tea system
Tea looks like the simplest product on a beauty and wellness site and behaves like the most complicated: a food that is brewed rather than eaten, sold with supplement-style claims, and sometimes built on botanicals that are medicines in half the world. Four connected pages cover it end to end.
The tea system at a glance
Source and blend it
Formats from pyramid bags to ready-to-drink, what drives MOQ, and the testing this crop needs before it ships.
21 botanicalsKnow what is in the cup
Caffeine per cup, what each botanical is used for, how strong the evidence is, and the cautions that belong on the pack.
10 marketsCheck the market
Where tea is a drink, where it becomes a listed medicine, and where a single word on the carton changes the product's legal status.
For drinkersRead the label honestly
What "detox" and "slimming" usually mean, how to check the caffeine, and the ingredient that makes some teas a laxative.
Six families, six different businesses
| Family | Examples | Caffeine | What decides quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| True tea (Camellia sinensis) | Green tea, Black tea, Oolong | Yes | Garden, harvest season and leaf grade; pesticide and heavy-metal residue |
| Herbal infusions | Chamomile, Peppermint and spearmint, Rooibos and honeybush | None | Species, part used and essential-oil content; pesticide residue |
| Adaptogens & roots | Licorice root, Holy basil (tulsi), Yerba mate and guarana | Usually none | Species verification, root versus leaf, active standardisation |
| Fruit, floral & spice | Hibiscus, Chrysanthemum, goji and jujube | None | Colour, aroma, adulteration and moisture |
| Spices & warming roots | Ginger and turmeric, Fennel, anise and star anise | None | Species authentication, essential-oil content and residue limits |
| Stimulant 'detox' botanicals | Senna, Cascara sagrada and aloe latex, Dandelion, burdock and milk thistle | None | Whether it may be sold as food at all in your market |
Formats, and what each one commits you to
- Pyramid bags — Woven mesh or PLA bags with room for larger leaf pieces. Watch: Mesh material and whether it is plastic-free; seal method; whether the claim on the carton matches the bag you receive.
- Flat filter bags with tag and string — The volume format for retail herbal tea. Watch: Paper grade and whether it is unbleached, staple-versus-knot closure, tag board GSM, and microplastic-free filter paper if you claim it.
- Loose leaf in tins, pouches or refill packs — Highest product quality perception and the lowest packaging cost per gram. Watch: Aroma barrier of the pouch, one-way degassing valve for fresh tea, tin lining and lacquer compliance for food contact.
- Stick packs and sachets — Single-serve powder or granule blends, often with added actives. Watch: Moisture and oxygen barrier, fill accuracy, and whether the powder dissolves cleanly in hot and cold water.
- Ready-to-drink cans and bottles — Cold-brew or brewed tea with functional additions. Watch: Thermal process validation, pH control, preservative strategy or hot fill, and shelf-life testing in the exact pack.
- Instant and cold-brew granules — Soluble tea for food service or grab-and-go formats. Watch: Spray-drying carrier, hygroscopicity, caking control and flavour loss over shelf life.
How to use these four pages
- Launching a tea brand? Start with sourcing, then check the botanicals in your blend against the reference, then confirm the claim wording for your market in market rules.
- Buying tea as a consumer? Go straight to how to read a tea label, and use the reference index to check what the front of the pack is implying.
- Already have a supplier? Run them through the supplier due-diligence check — the tea-specific questions are in the documentation group.
Wellness tea questions
What counts as a wellness tea?
Six families in practice: true tea from Camellia sinensis (green, black, oolong, white, pu-erh, matcha), herbal infusions (chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, lemon balm), adaptogen blends (tulsi, licorice, yerba mate), fruit and floral blends (hibiscus, chrysanthemum, goji), warming spices (ginger, turmeric, fennel, star anise), and the stimulant laxative botanicals that appear in 'detox' products (senna, cascara, aloe latex). Each family is treated differently by both the market and the regulations, which is why we handle them separately rather than as one product line.
Why does a tea website keep talking about regulation?
Because tea is where supplement-style marketing meets food law, and the collision is expensive. A word like 'detox' or 'slimming' can turn a drink into a medicine in the EU and UK, or into an unapproved drug claim in the US. Several of the botanicals that appear in those blends — senna in particular — are medicines rather than food ingredients in much of the world. Getting that wrong is a product-recall problem, not a copywriting problem.
Do you source tea as well as supplements?
Yes: blending, filling and packing for pyramid bags, flat bags, loose leaf, stick packs and ready-to-drink formats, with the pesticide, heavy-metal, microbiology and novel-food checks that this category needs. The ingredient and market reference pages are free whether or not you buy from us.
My product is a 'detox tea'. Will you quote it?
We will quote the tea, but not the claim. A blend built on senna is a laxative with a real pharmacological effect, and selling it as a gentle daily detox is both a regulatory and an ethical problem. What we will do is help you build a blend that tastes good, claims something defendable — flavour, caffeine level, organic origin, a specific botanical — and does not make people unwell.