Best of Health Tea

FDA just banned selling any tea with ASHWAGHANDA in the US.
Why? Because according to the FDA, tea is food - and ashwagandha is not an approved ingredient for use in conventional foods.
The FDA found no poison, or dangerous side effects for humans. No. The FDA simply does not have ashwagandha listed as "food" in some catalogue of theirs.
Supplements, on the other hand, are a different regulatory category. Buy that same ashwagandha as capsules or powder from the supplement aisle and, apparently, knock yourself out. But put the very same plant into a tea and... oh no, absolutely not. Heaven forbid.
We're posting about this not because we make ashwagandha tea - we don't. In fact, we don't buy any of our plant materials from suppliers at all. We wild-forage everything ourselves. We're bringing this up because the underlying issue can affect all kinds of small producers working with unusual plants and traditional foods: a product can be perfectly ordinary to people who have been using it for generations, yet fall into a completely different regulatory category simply because of how it's sold or prepared.
So if ashwagandha tea is your thing, this might be a good time to stock up before it disappears from online stores and retail shelves.

Almost a year later, our tea made from Asian pear leaves is finally ready!

These are the leaves from the very same trees whose Asian pears Era Pogosova (Theatre33) offered for sale as part of a fundraiser to help send the theater's performers to Scotland for Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the September of 2025.
Best of Health Tea decided then to support the effort in a slightly different way: instead of buying the fruit, we bought some leaves from those very trees specifically to see if we could turn them into tea.

If you're thinking that taking an entire year to make tea sounds like a bit much, we assure you: it isn't. We actually make tea. We don't put fresh leaves in a dryer and say "well, I guess that's tea," repackage purchased herbs, or resell someone else's finished product. We use traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and apply them to leaves from local plants. So quite a lot happened to these leaves over the past year: they were withered, heated, rolled, oxidized, fermented in a nitrogen environment, aged for many months, and finally steamed and pressed. And all of it - exclusively Asian pear leaves.

The result is pu-erh. Yes, actual pu-erh. Just herbal.

There isn't a single leaf of Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, in it, so it is naturally caffeine-free. But the production process remained that of pu-erh - which is why we call it herbal pu-erh. And over the course of processing, the leaves developed an entire bouquet of flavors that you simply can't get by just drying fresh Asian pear leaves. GABA also formed during the process - something especially valued in the tea world.

So, in a rather fun twist, the tree that helped Theatre33 make a trip to Scotland came back to us almost a year later as pu-erh tea.

Which brings us back to Theatre33:

Last weekend, the theater took part in three different events. And this coming weekend, Seattle will host the Northwest's largest tea festival: two days devoted to tea in all its imaginable and unimaginable forms. And Theatre33 isn't there!
So we'd like to fix that. If anyone from Theatre33 would like to spend a couple of hours with us at our booth as a volunteer - perhaps even wearing Theatre33 gear - we'd be delighted. The job is simple: offer samples of our teas to visitors and, if you'd like, tell them a little about what they're drinking. And this is where some theatrical talent might actually come in handy: when someone tries Asian pear pu-erh for the first time, you never know whether they'll need a simple explanation or a full performance.

And, of course, this offer isn't limited to Theatre33:

If you're reading this and would like to spend a few hours with us at the festival, come join us. The festival has an admission fee, and in exchange for a couple of hours helping out at our booth, you'll get free admission at the very least. 😉 And you'll get to try that tea made from Asian pear leaves - the one we spent almost an entire year making.

So excited!!! We just got accepted to the Gobble Up Seattle!!! (And if anyone wants to volunteer for us at the show - we always can use you help!)
This is Seattle's largest Indie Craft Show organized by Urban Craft Uprising - Urban Craft Uprising, showcasing over 100 local craft food makers and vendors. There will be lots of sampling, shopping, and community engagement, so if you're a food enthusiast, or want to support unique local artists in the Pacific Northwest - that's the place to be on NOVEMBER 13 & 14!!!
Gobble Up Seattle aims to support local food artisans and small businesses, allowing them to showcase their products directly to consumers. The event not only promotes local food culture but is also a place for community interaction and holiday shopping!