Like Reusable and Plastic-free? Try This Tea Brand
Are you a tea drinker but hate drinking plastic? Republic of Tea may be a good fit with their microplastic-free tea bags.
Now you can drink your tea with with ease while watching your garden bloom. The Republic of Tea focuses its sustainability efforts on sustainable, eco-friendly packaging and ethical sourcing, including the use of unbleached round tea bags, recyclable steel tins.
Regenerative Agriculture
The Republic of Tea launched its Regenerative Organic Certified® Tea Collection in 2025, featuring sustainably sourced teas that supported environmental stewardship. The collection included Organic Tulsi, Organic Assam, and Organic Assam Black Iced Tea.
Regenerative Organic Certified® uses the USDA Certified Organic standard as a baseline. From there, it adds important criteria and benchmarks that incorporate the three major pillars of regenerative organic agriculture into one certification.
The goal of Regenerative Organic Certified® is to promote holistic agriculture practices in an all- encompassing certification that:
Increases soil organic matter over time and sequesters carbon below and above ground, which could be a tool to mitigate climate change;
Improves animal welfare; and
Provides economic stability and fairness for farmers, ranchers, and workers.
There are 3 levels of certification that depend on a number of factors such as:
Operations conserve and restore natural bodies of water, wetland, riparian areas, and associated habitats.
From January 1, 2015 onward, operations have not cleared primary, untouched forest or old-growth secondary forests nor converted wetlands, peatlands, or protected grasslands.
Fracking, mining, and other extractive practices including initial exploration shall not be conducted on land within the operation.
Vegetation is maintained, ground is minimally tilled, and fertilizers and pesticides are not used.
Ecologically positive practices are used like pollinator gardens, streamside forests, and water conservation.
Waste Reduction
As Republic of Tea States:
“For every 1 million tea bags of The Republic of Tea sipped, 60 pounds of staples, 47 miles of string and 1 million paper tags are saved from landfills.”
Their distinctive cylindrical steel tea tins are airtight, recyclable and reusable. Recovering steel not only saves money, but also dramatically reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gases released compared to making steel from virgin materials. These tins use recyclable, BPA-free plastic for bottled products and steel tins containing 30-50% recycled steel.
Republic of Tea Glass Bottled Iced Teas made with 20-25% recycled glass. A glass bottle is the very best way to preserve the integrity, quality and freshness of this premium tea. Further, glass is one of the worlds most recycled materials.
Globally, we lose around $1 trillion USD per year on food that is wasted or lost. 28% of agricultural land goes to grow food that is never eaten.They are member of the Upcycled Food Association, a nonprofit focused on reducing food waste by growing the upcycled food economy. Upcycled foods are made from ingredients that would otherwise have ended up in a food waste destination.
Plastic Free Tea
Republic of Tea was identified as a plastic-free tea brand by the Center for Environmental Health.
For all shipments, the principal packing material is reclaimed tea paper supplemented by GEAMI or EXPANDOS, 100 percent recyclable packaging products. The natural packing materials not only protect fine tea and sipware, but also allows The Republic of Tea to use smaller, 100 percent recyclable shipping boxes, which results in saving fossil fuels (both from tires and diesel gas) and pollution in transportation.
Ethical and Human
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They support the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP). ETP is a global membership organization that is catalyzing long-term, systemic change, to benefit everybody who works in tea — especially people in tea-producing regions. In partnership with the ETP, they support tea gardens around the world.
With the support of The Republic of Tea, ETP has collaborated with Talawakelle Tea Estates PLC to implement the Women in Leadership initiative, with a primary focus on advancing gender equality within the tea industry. Led by TTE, the project is designed to empower women to assume leadership roles and foster a more inclusive workplace culture. The initiative delivers comprehensive leadership training to a diverse group of participants, including women such as tea harvesters, team leaders, field supervisors, and factory workers; men including estate managers, assistant managers, and field workers; as well as youth. A key objective of the program is to engage male leaders as active advocates for gender equality. Through this inclusive and participatory approach, the project aims to drive meaningful transformation within the tea sector and strengthen the presence of women in leadership
