Luxury Tea Leader Newby Teas Fact Checks Claims Taking Over the Modern Day Tea Industry

Written In Partnership With Jordan Finkle 

While disinformation has run rampant on the internet for some decades now, it’s only become increasingly difficult for casual internet users to discern between what’s a credible source of online information versus what’s unreliable in recent years. With the rise of social media and the evolution of mind-bending new technologies like ‘deep fakes,’ online disinformation has reached all new heights in 2022. Though the casual media consumer may think of online disinformation as a plague that specifically targets political news and other potentially controversial subjects, internet users may be surprised to find that online disinformation has become so rampant that it has trickled down to even the most common aspects of our day-to-day lives. Further, as false information spreads across the internet and the cultural zeitgeist at large, even reputable news sources and established organizations have been guilty of passing along inaccurate narratives. 

Take tea for example. With a rich 5,000-year-long history that has inspired billions of people across the globe to pour themselves cups of the beverage every day, one may think that tea’s extensive reach and mature culture would make the industry impervious to disinformation. However, this is, unfortunately, not the case, as many F&B buyers for large hospitality ventures and even government officials have perpetuated multiple falsehoods about tea for many years now – knowingly or unknowingly. This phenomenon recently came to a head this September, when the World Economic Forum – a respected international organization with the aim to improve the world through the power of economics – posted a video about the unsubstantiated health benefits of tea on LinkedIn, spreading disinformation to its millions and millions of followers in the process.

The video claimed that drinking two cups of black tea per day can reduce one’s risk of death, heart disease, and strokes and that drinking three cups of green tea per day can have a similar effect on the body. While many viewers soaked up the information without a second thought, others were not as thrilled about the World Economic Forum pushing unsubstantiated information about tea to the public. This, in turn, led some people to question the other factors playing in survey respondents’ health.

“Maybe correlation isn’t causation,” said one commenter. “Have they factored out the possibility that people who drink black tea do more exercise, or eat less junk, for example?” Another person commented, “I think this deserves more research before making such definite claims.”

For Newby Teas, a London-based luxury tea company with a staunch commitment to providing quality teas around the globe, the World Economic Forum’s informational blunder has brought an opportunity for the brand to rebut the claims, restore a sense of honor to the current narrative around tea, and illustrate its passion for high-quality tea.

Rather than parrot the World Economic Forum’s claims to take advantage of the less-informed consumers, the Newby Teas team is standing on their values by opening up a conversation around the low-quality teas that oversaturate the current market supply. Newby Teas does not believe it is ethical to support the claims of the World Economic Forum’s post as it is irresponsibly misleading and not backed up by scientific research. As a leading brand in the tea industry, the Newby Teas team believes they must continue discussing the problematic cultivation processes and the chemically-laden tea products running rampant in the consumer markets.

Since the brand’s inception, Newby Teas and its founder Nirmal Sethia have been raising the alarm about the subpar and dangerous cultivation process followed by most large modern tea brands. These cultivators are not taking the proper steps or care necessary to ensure the quality and safety of the tea products they make. As a result, the industry is now filled to the brim with teas that have unsafe levels of chemicals like fluoride, which has been linked to osteoporosis and some heart and kidney issues. 

Many of these teas are not even fit for human consumption, but are popular due to a lack of consumer knowledge on quality practices and unreliable regulation standards across the industry. These unsafe teas are available for purchase across all corners of the map and even in some of the world’s most high-end hotels and restaurants. Without brands like Newby Teas, which are not only committed to producing quality tea, but are also committed to raising awareness of bad actors in the industry, average and luxury consumers would be none the wiser about the negative effects of the low-quality tea they drink. This is precisely why Newby Teas is so intent on pushing back on any mistruths that exist in the industry, regardless of the esteem of the organization perpetuating it. 

As a result, Newby Teas cautions tea lovers to purchase tea from companies with safe and secure cultivation practices – much like Newby Teas’ own – to ensure the health of its consumers. 

Newby Teas has maintained a commitment to emphasizing safety and quality as paramount throughout every end of its tea development process, from cultivating and manufacturing to packaging and retail. Newby Teas goes above and beyond the international health and safety regulation standards. This should not come as a surprise as the company is owned substantially by Nirmal Sethia’s N Sethia Foundation, an organization committed to social responsibility, healthy living, and consumer empowerment; further, the N Sethia Foundation is behind the Chitra Collection, which is the world’s most extensive collection of nearly 3000 unique and historical tea-related objects.

Tea enthusiasts around the world are in debt to the International award-winning luxury teas company for giving a voice to the voiceless and standing up for the average consumer against the negative incentives of large tea corporations and big media conglomerates. Newby Teas believes that the best way to emphasize the ancient health benefits of tea used by humans for generations is to hold the regulating bodies accountable, commit to health standards, and be truthful in marketing. While the World Economic Forum’s post may have been an example of irresponsible messaging, Newby Teas is committed to using its platform to rewrite the narrative of contemporary tea quality and consumer safety, turning over a new leaf for the tea industry in the process. Taking the response to the WEF’s post in the comments as a guide, tea drinkers around the world are grateful for Newby Teas’s mission.