About Uproot Teas

As a child of first-gen Chinese immigrants, Cindy Li inherited her ancestors’ love of tea and a reverence for the farming communities her family came from. While researching the commodity tea industry in university, Cindy learned about the colonial tea trade, a history steeped in abusing farmers and profiting off of the commoditization of their crops. Even today, modern businesses are built on industrial structures from the ages of colonialism and imperialism. As a result, the tea itself suffered: hurried, mass production strips the tea of high-quality, premium whole leaves—the kind Cindy grew up drinking gallons of with her family. We’re uprooting the antiquated tea trade by bringing transparency to our sourcing, pay, and sustainability with our whole leaves. We are proud to be a zero-waste company - all of our packaging is 100% compostable (even for home composting)! We partner directly with smallholder farms in Hawai'i, Japan, and Vermont to source high quality, artisan whole leaves & botanicals that you can really see. Read their story