Read the leaves (or rather labels) of your tea

Tea is the second leading beverage in the world behind water. The aromatic drink has been around for thousands of years, first used as medicine and now depending on the leaves steeped, it is arguably both a medicine and a beverage. Around the world, countless hours of the day are spent imbibing a cup (an estimated three billion daily) and, in some cultures, tea is so revered meals and parties are centered around the drink.

In fact, here in the South, a gathering is not complete without a glass of sweet tea, an amber-hued delicacy of sugary sweetness derived from orange pekoe steeped leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant and chilled to perfection. The elixir is quintessential southern hospitality. The art of iced tea making in the South is passed down from generation to generation in the form of recipes with added ingredients like sugar, honey, peppermint leaves, lemon, baking soda, etc. These ingredients and their measurements can hint to the answer of the age-long Southern question of, “who are your people?” as they harken to the ancestral geographical origins of the recipe maker.

Tea is grown in many parts of the world. Most people think that Asia is the source of tea and while it is the producer of the bulk of the world’s tea, it is also produced in many parts of Africa, with Kenya and Malawi, leading in production on the continent. Malawi boasts it is the oldest African tea producer with Kenya being the world’s third largest producer. In North America, one of the largest commercial tea farms is right here in South Carolina on Wadmalaw Island, the Charleston Tea Garden, now owned by Bigelow. Interestingly, Hawaii is fast becoming a tea producing state. Additionally, artisan tea companies are beginning to crop up all over the United States.

Sadly, a bitter cup of tea may not come from just how long it is steeped, but also from its leaves’ origins. According to the U.S. Department of State and the International Labor Rights Forum, tea production in the following countries involves the use of forced and child labor: Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, Tanzania, India, Cameroon, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, and penal camps in China. These leaves end up in many tea products around the world. Many tea plantations in these countries are both a source and a destination in today’s modern-day slavery. Traffickers, knowing that laborers in certain tea plantations are exploited, often go there to lure workers away promising them a better life and they end up enslaved in forced domestic labor or are sex trafficked. Also, due to labor shortages and deplorable conditions of many of the tea plantations, traffickers know they can make money from the plantation owners by providing adults and children forced to work at the farms for little or no pay.

So, to help end modern-day slavery, before you steep, read the tea leaves (or rather the labels).