Tea and your carbon footprint
Just want to know peoples opinions on this really... In the UK over the past couple of years there's been alot of discussion in the media/politics about the so-called "carbon footprint", in other words the personal impact we as individuals have on the environment in terms of our carbon emissions. People have also suggested ways of us reducing our CF including buying local produce, using our cars/flying less etc. There is also carbon "offsetting" in which people intentionally do environmentally friendly things to offset their not so good stuff, I dunno, say by planting a tree or two... Anyway as usual this got me thinking about tea, particularly that all the air miles I use in flying tea over from Japan/China ultimatlely are pretty bad for my CF. This isn't going to make me stop ordering tea, but as I have detected a few "green" minded people on here... Has this thought ever crossed your mind? Has anybody ever thought about offsetting their tea emissions? Jack
Some shops (Palais des thés for instance) pay a "carbon tax" to compensate the carbon emissions. Due to the the limited weight of tea, other actions (taking my bike to go to work, not flying, buying as often as possible food locally produced (especially not buying fruits from southern hemisphere) are far more consequent.
I am not a very green person. In fact I am a doubter of most of the environmental chicken littles. But I do care about our health and future generations, so I will be the first to answer the question. Most of my "green" thoughts revolve around dumping less crap into the ground and the ocean.
I use bottled water for tea - the bottles are reused (the 5 gallon kind) but it there is still a trucking cost. I also fly tea (and myself) all over the globe at a pretty impressive rate. I'll try not to start a full scale debate here, but I do not believe that the infamous carbon is our greatest fear.
I am a big fan of organic produce. You can't fully trust a USDA that allows carcinogenic herbicide to be sprayed on genetically engineered plants, or allows the milk and meat sale of cows infected with MAP (a likely cause of Chron's disease in humans) without labeling. I guess it is better than nothing. Organic products produce less toxic run off, and better tasting healthier food for my belly.
Eggs and chicken meat collected from chickens that are not squished in between 6 of their sisters and doped up every day sure does taste better.
Most organic tea out of Japan is said to lack a bit of the punch from tea grown with nitrogen fertilizer, I still buy mostly non-organic labeled products from here. It is exciting to see, however, that many of the old tea plantations of Yunnan (who have been 'organic' long before we set foot in North America), are starting to be certified.
A tea shop I've visited composts spent leaves in a kitchen composter. The rich natural fertilizer is used in the garden. I really like this idea, but I haven't made the jump myself. My brown thumb hasn't managed yet to get any vegetables off the ground.
I use bottled water for tea - the bottles are reused (the 5 gallon kind) but it there is still a trucking cost. I also fly tea (and myself) all over the globe at a pretty impressive rate. I'll try not to start a full scale debate here, but I do not believe that the infamous carbon is our greatest fear.
I am a big fan of organic produce. You can't fully trust a USDA that allows carcinogenic herbicide to be sprayed on genetically engineered plants, or allows the milk and meat sale of cows infected with MAP (a likely cause of Chron's disease in humans) without labeling. I guess it is better than nothing. Organic products produce less toxic run off, and better tasting healthier food for my belly.
Eggs and chicken meat collected from chickens that are not squished in between 6 of their sisters and doped up every day sure does taste better.
Most organic tea out of Japan is said to lack a bit of the punch from tea grown with nitrogen fertilizer, I still buy mostly non-organic labeled products from here. It is exciting to see, however, that many of the old tea plantations of Yunnan (who have been 'organic' long before we set foot in North America), are starting to be certified.
A tea shop I've visited composts spent leaves in a kitchen composter. The rich natural fertilizer is used in the garden. I really like this idea, but I haven't made the jump myself. My brown thumb hasn't managed yet to get any vegetables off the ground.
Sep 10th, '08, 09:21
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I wish there were more shops like Palais des thes here in the UK, I have very little choice but to ship my tea direct pretty much all the time.olivierco wrote:Some shops (Palais des thés for instance) pay a "carbon tax" to compensate the carbon emissions. Due to the the limited weight of tea, other actions (taking my bike to go to work, not flying, buying as often as possible food locally produced (especially not buying fruits from southern hemisphere) are far more consequent.
Sep 30th, '08, 08:54
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I ran a few workshops for young kids to education them on carbon print and I think it's a very important issue in our society.
Compared with the 1600 miles traveled by our average dinner table food items, transporting tea internationally is not that bad. Consider the consuming rate of tea (1 pound lasts for a long time), I think we feel less guilty about tea than many other things.
I boiled tap water for my tea. But I am lucky to live in a region with very good water quality. I think water consumption is a big problems for carbon footprint of all people, not only tea drinkers. In some poor-water-quality regions of asia, there are community filter tanks to provide good quality filtrated water, therefore no need to transport water (which is one of the heaviest goods), no need for disposable plastic bottles (households use their own big plastic jars to get drinking water and use the jars for many times), no need for filtration systems for every household.
In terms of tea, I love oolong and I have big problem with the little 7gram vacuumed plastic packs. They are good to reduce oxidation and for long-term storage. But I don't see them necessary at all. Oolong is not the kind of tea hardest to preserve, when proper methods are used. The little vacuumed plastic packs, I heard, hundreds of billions (literally) of them are used annually now.
Compared with the 1600 miles traveled by our average dinner table food items, transporting tea internationally is not that bad. Consider the consuming rate of tea (1 pound lasts for a long time), I think we feel less guilty about tea than many other things.
I boiled tap water for my tea. But I am lucky to live in a region with very good water quality. I think water consumption is a big problems for carbon footprint of all people, not only tea drinkers. In some poor-water-quality regions of asia, there are community filter tanks to provide good quality filtrated water, therefore no need to transport water (which is one of the heaviest goods), no need for disposable plastic bottles (households use their own big plastic jars to get drinking water and use the jars for many times), no need for filtration systems for every household.
In terms of tea, I love oolong and I have big problem with the little 7gram vacuumed plastic packs. They are good to reduce oxidation and for long-term storage. But I don't see them necessary at all. Oolong is not the kind of tea hardest to preserve, when proper methods are used. The little vacuumed plastic packs, I heard, hundreds of billions (literally) of them are used annually now.
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