EP. 097 How Do You Drink Your Tea?

In this episode, you'll learn all about how to drink tea in the best possible healthy way!

Included :

• Examples of health benefits of several herbal teas
• Teabags often release micro and nano plastics
• McGill University research study results on teabags
• 'Silk' teabags
• Components of teabags
• Herbal matter inside teabags - how pure?
• Roasted dandelion tea
• Studies showing areas of body where plastics are embedded
• Health effects of plastics in the body
• Hormonal disruptors
• Which teabags have most plastics?
• The effect of heat on plastics
• Tea brands in Australia which are safe
• Safer ways to drink your tea
• Making your own tea formulae
• Rinsing teabags - benefits

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:07

You're listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm Manisha Blunchley, your host. I'll be sharing great tips with you to inspire you, to educate you, and to empower you so that you can re-establish your health and well-being using safest and natural tips and therapies, including light, colour, sound, superfoods, and other great methods. Welcome to the show. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Limbic Light Podcast. I'm here with you today to speak about something that occurred for me last night, which I gave it some thought, and I thought, hmm, this might be an interesting topic to research and also share with you all. Last night I was at a little gathering with some friends, and one of the men there spoke to me and he said, Oh, someone told me that it's not so good to drink caffeine or drink coffee. So I went to the supermarket today and I purchased a few different tea bags, and he's talking about conventional black tea bags. He said that he went home and when he brewed up his tea in these tea bags, he noticed that it just didn't taste very nice or just didn't feel right to him. So he started to dive into a little bit of research. He was researching into the tea bags themselves, and lo and behold, he came across some really revealing information and facts stating that tea bags, most tea bags anyway, contain billions usually of tiny tiny little particles of plastic. And he was shocked. When I heard this, I thought, okay, I'm going to dive a little bit further. So this is what we're going to speak about today. As a result of me doing this, by the way, I've decided not to drink out of tea bags and explore other methods of drinking tea. And mind you, I mostly drink herbal teas, sometimes some roasted dandelion coffee or tea, and much of the time they are in tea bags. So let's take a dive. Most of us think that tea, particularly herbal tea, is something that's associated with health, also with relaxation and general natural living. And to a certain extent, yes, it is. Herbal teas are widely consumed for their perceived wellness benefits. For example, chamomile tea is really well known for its calming effects to drink in the evening to help you sleep, or peppermint tea if you want to have digestive assistance after a meal, particularly a meal with lots of fats or heavy foods. However, there is some recent scientific research that's revealed something so surprising, and that is that many of the tea bags that have these herbal teas do release microplastics into your drink, particularly when it's exposed to hot water. In this episode, we're going to look at some of the science behind the tea bags and the materials that are used to manufacture them, and the scale of the microplastic contamination that researchers have found, or most importantly, what you can do to change this, how you can basically avoid taking in these harmful microplastics into your body. So let's have a look at one of these research studies. One of the most widely cited studies on tea bags and microplastics was conducted by researchers at McGill University and it was published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. The researchers tested plastic pyramid style teabags. You might know them as being a more premium type of silk. They often call these teabags silk teabags. Now these are made actually from nylon and polyethylene terephthalate, which is also known as PET. Most of us know one of the important plastics that we want to avoid are the PETs. So they discovered that when these tea bags were brewed in water at approximately 95 degrees Celsius, which is just below boiling temperature, and it's really the most common temperature that we do steep a tea bag into. Bags released staggering amounts of plastic particles. And their findings showed that one single plastic teabag can release 11.6 billion microplastic particles. That's phenomenal. And also 3.1 billion nanoplastic particles. So just to get a perspective on that, micro is really tiny, but nano is so small that it can quite easily integrate into your body tissues. So this is one tea bag, I'll remind you. 11.6 billion particles of microplastic and 3.1 billion particles of nanoplastic. That equates to approximately 14.7 billion plastic particles in just one cup of tea. So why do these tea bags contain plastic? Well, many people assume that tea bags are simply made from paper, but in reality, many tea bags include plastic components to maintain the strength of the bag and also to prevent the bag from breaking down in boiling water. So here are some of the common materials that's actually used in a tea bag. Polypropylene, it's often used to heat seal paper tea bags, nylon mesh, PET plastic, and plant-based bioplastics such as PLA. So even those tea bags that appear to be paper, they look like paper, they also contain these polypropylene fibers, tiny tiny little fibers that are used as a sealing agent when the bag is actually manufactured. And these premium so-called pyramid or so-called silk tea bags are often marketed as higher quality, and they're frequently made entirely from plastic mesh. And of course, that can release super high levels of these microplastics when it's heated. So you want to avoid those. And just to add to the complexity and probably to put you off drinking herbal tea bags, herbal teas from tea bags, I also discovered that many of the herbal teas that are often marketed as natural health supportive types of products have been shown that they contain microplastic contamination in the actual herbal matter itself. In one very recent analysis in 2025, looking at packaged teas, including chamomile teas, sage tea, and also linden tea. For those of you who don't know linden, it is a beautiful herb that's used to help calm the nervous system. It's a really nice one to drink at nighttime. In this analysis, they detected microplastic fibers in nearly all the samples of the herb matter itself tested. They were able to identify several plastic types in the herbal matter, including the PETs, something called EVA, which is evaline vinyl acetate, and PAN, which is polyacryl nitrile. Now, even though we don't understand basically what these plastics are, I can tell you quite assuredly that we don't want too many of these plastics in our body. And in this analysis of the microplastic particles found in the herbal matter itself, they ranged in size from approximately 35 micrometers to over 600 micrometers. So this assumes that the contaminants may have come from the tea bag itself, or it may have come from environmental contamination during the farming, the processing, or the packaging. One of the teas that I really love drinking is dandelion tea. It's often sold as a type of alternative to coffee. And the particular brand that I use is Bonvit, and it's delicious, but it isn't a tea bag and it's roasted dandelion. Now I did a bit of a search to see whether these tea bags were also contaminated, and I could not identify or could not find any information to indicate either way whether it was a safe tea bag or not. But I can tell you pretty assuredly now I'm not going to be drinking these tea bags, this dandelion roasted coffee, in this format. What I will be doing, and I'll go into this a little bit later, is basically removing the roasted dandelion from the tea bag and brewing it that way, or some other ways, which I'll get into in a little while. So you might be thinking, Oh, I don't mind so much if there's a few microplastics hanging around in my body. Why would I be concerned? And I have to say, I admit that for quite some time I was thinking along those lines until I really awokened last night hearing my friend discuss the amounts of these nanoparticles that are found in the tea bags. And I thought, my goodness, I'm not going to be doing this anymore. So recent studies have detected microplastics in several parts of the human body, and of course, this is the case if we're ingesting nanoparticle microplastics in particular because they can move through all parts of our body so easily. They've been found in the blood, in the lungs, in liver, even in breast milk, which is a worry, and even in some brain tissue. And scientists are still studying the long-term health impacts, but this is what is on the table for now regarding microplastics and nanoplastics in our body. They tend to cause inflammation. Definitely, there's indication that they disrupt the hormones. And of course, for many women who have female-based types of cancers, and what I mean by that is breast cancer, uterine cancer, cervical cancer, or even of the ovaries, they are very much regulated by the hormone levels in our body. So if we have hormone disruptors, such as these microplastics in our body, they're going to wreak havoc on the fine balance that we need for healthy tissue in particular our female parts. As well as this, some scientists have found that the microplastics cause oxidative stress, and that's basically a sweeping term that underlies virtually every health condition that you can think of. It's more or less the deterioration, the breakdown of healthy body tissue. And of course, the plastics also play havoc on our immune system. So we want to be aware of which tea bags are most likely to release microplastics. And once again, the research showed me that the highest microplastic release occurs from these nylon pyramid tea bags, as I mentioned before, which are often marketed as the premium sachets. And also from PET plastic mesh bags and from paper tea bags, which have been sealed with polypropylene plastic. Now you're not going to actually see this, but when they manufacture the tea bags, they need to close them in an effective way. And one of the most common ways that they do is they seal it with this very fine plastic. You won't see it, but unfortunately that's what they mostly use. And as I mentioned before, when heat is exposed to these tea bags, it will leach and make all these microplastics go into the water very quickly and very easily. So heat plus these microplastics is really not a good idea. It causes the particle shedding. So I thought I would have a look at certain brands that are safe, particularly in Australia, that's where I live, and for these teabag companies, herbal teabag companies. And what I found that there are some companies that are producing plastic-free tea bags made from plant fibres, such as something known as abaca, which is banana fiber, or wood pulp, or even using cotton stitching. So some of these brands include the puka herbs that's spelt P-U-D-K-A herbs, or NUMI organic tea, that's N-U-M-I, also traditional medicinals, also yogi tea, and clipper tea. Now often these teas will be slightly more expensive than the ones that you'll find in the supermarket, but if you are really determined to buy tea bags and still drink tea bags after this podcast, then I would highly recommend that you pay that tiny little bit extra so that you know that you've got a really safe tea bag so that you can make a safe cup of tea to ingest into your body. Many of the bags that are designed by these companies, they're made to be fully compostable and they're sealed completely without any of this polypropylene plastic. So let's have a look at some of the ways that I'm going to start drinking my herbal teas, and that you can think about as well some of the safer ways that you can be assured that you're going to be getting a much, much better cup of herbal tea. So the first thing, and probably one of the best, is just to choose loose tea, loose leaf tea, or if it's a root, a root or flowers. And you can easily purchase these either online. There's some very good organic suppliers of herbal teas, loose tea. Sometimes some good health food stores will also sell some loose teas as well. So what I suggested to my companion this evening, because he really likes some of the formulas that are made in these tea bags, that we study the formula that's actually used in the favorite tea bags. We write them down and we formulate these recipes ourselves by purchasing the ingredients and putting them together in a small little jar and storing it somewhere fairly cool where it's not going to be affected by both sunlight and also by heat. And maybe just mix small amounts so that you can try it and test it, and also for freshness, of course, all those wonderful essential oils, all those wonderful ingredients found in the herbs are preserved for a limited period of time. So it's better to make a small amount, store it in a jar, maybe put it in a cupboard, and then brew it up in a little teapot. Or you can also buy the stainless steel mesh capsules where you can put just a teaspoon or so of your herbal tea mixture, the loose mixture, into and put it into your cup and pour the hot water in into the cup that way. So that is probably the best way you can actually start drinking your herbal teas. You can also use stainless steel or glass tea infusers. That's another way. So there's lots of different alternative methods you can explore. Even though it seems like a little thing, I must say if you do love your herbal teas and you're having maybe one cup a day, after years of drinking herbal teas, these little plastics do accumulate in the body. There are methods to actually detoxify the body to help release some of these plastics from being stored in the body, and that's a topic for another podcast. But for now, let's just stay with switching from tea bags to other healthier ways of drinking your teas. So please share this with anyone who you think might benefit. And once again, it's lovely to share great information with you. I do love having the connection, even though I don't always hear feedback. When I do, I get very excited just to hear that I have actually reached someone and they find the information of value. So thank you to those of you who do reach out to me and give me your feedback. So go well, everyone, and all the best and stay well. Bye for now. You've been listening to Limbic Light Podcast. I'm your host, Manisha Blunchley, and remember to share this with whoever you think may benefit and subscribe if you want to be notified about all the new upcoming releases of episodes. Thanks for listening.