Herbal & Rooibos Teas
Free shopping guide to Herbal & Rooibos Teas, from Ethical Consumer

Free shopping guide to Herbal & Rooibos Teas, from Ethical Consumer


This is a product guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK's leading alternative consumer organisation. Since 1989 we've been researching and recording the social and environmental records of companies, and making the results available to you in a simple format.

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The report includes:

  • Ethical and environmental ratings for 24 herbal teas
  • Best Buy recommendations
  • A look at the teas and their fairtrade labelling

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Score Ratings

Our ratings are live updated scores from our primary research database. They are based on primary and secondary research across 19 categories. Find out more about our ethical ratings. 

 

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Full Scorecard

The Full Scorecard shows the 'black marks' for each product, by each of the 19 categories. The bigger the mark, the worse the score. So for example a big black circle under 'Worker Rights' shows that the company making this product has been severely criticised for worker abuses.

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Best Buys

as of November 2006


As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.


Equal Exchange, Qi and Dragonfly teas which are both organic and Fairtrade come out best.


Herbal tea - mini report

The main issues for buyers of herb teas haven't changed much since the last report, in issue 83 (June/July 2003), but for those looking for ethical alternatives the choices have expanded further. With the success of fair trade and organic labelling schemes in the herbal tea market, there is now a huge range of flavours of herbal and green teas for those wanting to make ethical choices, although online shopping or wholefood shops are still the best places to find the best buys on the table. Supermarket herb tea shelves are still likely to be dominated by brands such as Liptons and Twinings, owned by international corporations such as Wittington Investments/Associated British Foods and Unilever. The Heath & Heather and London Herb & Spice brands, also amongst the more easily found herbal teas, have passed from investment company Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst to Indian industrial group Apeejay Surrendra, with operations in shipping, hotels and finance.

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