Molbani Tea Company

Great Taste, Less Waste!

Why does tea have to be so wasteful?

In 2016, the average Canadian consumed 264 cups tea. Approximately 94% of those cups used a tea bag. With roughly 37.5 million Canadians today, that amounts to…

9.43 billion tea bags a year! 

That’s a whole lot of waste just for convenience! Why can’t there be a better solution? That question was asked and answered by Molbani Tea Company with our original Tea Gems: a compact, all-natural dose of tea that you can take on the go. Tackling food waste with better design is the Molbani way!

What the heck is a Tea Gem?

These are tea gems: made with whole herbs, spices and teas, these concentrated, all-natural doses of tea in convenient tablet form can be taken with you to your next adventure. 

Taking influence from the Japanese mentality of no waste (無駄 –  むだ), the confectionery Higashi (干菓子 – ひがし), engineering design and herbalist philosophy, the tea gem was born

Why are Tea Gems better than regular tea?

1. Looseleaf teas usually require more time steeping to enjoy, while due to Tea Gems smaller particle size, Tea Gems diffuse faster than loose leaf tea due to their unique flavour dispersion properties by up to 50%. This makes cold brewing tea, or making tea in a water bottle on a hike are perfect examples of tea on the go! 
2. About 30% of material can be reduced from tea packaging by foregoing the tea bag, while also reducing shipping fuel costs from the reduced packaging’s volume and weight, we aim to reduce our footprint where we can!
3. Poly “silken” tea bags (made from plastic) can disperse more than 3 billion pieces of plastic right into your cup of tea: talk about gross and unnecessary! We purposefully avoid using plastic packaging to bring you the best teas to your doorstep.
4. When you’re done with your cup, the used tea usually needs to be composted/thrown away, keeping you from getting 100% of what the tea leaves offer. Tea Gem’s tea fines can be consumed along with the cup of tea giving you all the health benefits of every herb, and not just a fraction.

How do I use Tea Gems?

1. Decide on the Tea Gem flavour from our selection, and place your flavour into your cup/container (we recommend one Tea Gem for the usual 250mL of water, but add more gems to your strength preference). 
2. Pour over hot or cold water and stir until the Tea Gem dissolves into tea powder. Let steep for at least 1 minute for hot water, and at least 30+ minutes for cold water. Remember to stir!
3. Tea fines will form on the bottom of the cup: this is normal! This powder is designed to be fine enough to drink without much issue, but if you prefer it, you can strain the tea fines in a fine mesh strainer to remove the majority of particulates.  
4. Once strained, enjoy your tea!

Tea Gems can be used to make a delicious cup of tea, but they can also be used for mixed drinks, smoothies and health drinks to give you that extra boost!

Where can I get some tea gems?

Right now, we have our online store open, feel free to check out what’s in stock and what’s on sale! We are looking for other avenues to share our teas with the public, such as Farmer’s Markets in the Lower Mainland or local stores that could hold our products. With COVID-19 disrupting much of the world, there are extra hurdles to join many of these events, but we are working hard to make those avenues happen! Check out our social media for future announcements. 

How does shipping work?

If you are ordering to an address in the British Columbia, we charge a flat rate of $7.27 for each order. If you are outside the province, we charge $10 for each order. If you order over $30, the shipping will be free of charge.  Currently, we are only shipping to locations in Canada, so stay tuned for more info on international eligibility.