What do you mean, “Best by” date?

 

Many people mistakenly think that the "Best by" date is an Expiration Date, but this is not true. Product beyond the "best by" date is NOT "inedible" or "unsafe" in any respect. In fact, except for infant formula, dating is not an indicator of product safety and is not required by Federal Law.

 

We use Best By dates to ensure that our teas taste fantastic!

Tea goes stale over time, so we want to ensure that the drinker (that’s you!) experiences the ideal flavor for your tea enjoyment. The goal of the Best By date is to make sure none of our teas or ingredients spend too long sitting in storage, slowly losing their delicious flavors. Tracking these dates allows us to ensure that we are properly rotating through our stock, and also that our customers are getting the very best that Morelitea has to offer!

There’s no standard methods to determine Best By dates, of course. The tea doesn’t suddenly go bad after that date; "peak freshness" is a general term and it's measured in years, not days, but we wanted to give you plenty of time to enjoy our blends without even having to worry. So, our chef Lee made some of our very first tea blends and set them aside to periodically sample, to see how long until their flavors started to fade. We’ve found that this takes more than a full year, but we wanted to make sure that anyone who buys our tea has plenty of time to enjoy it, so we’ve set our Best By dates for six months after the blends are made.

 

Okay, but will my tea start tasting different or weird after a year?

At Morelitea, we package our teas in food-grade, fully opaque containers in order to preserve freshness of the blends for as long as possible. We drink our own tea quite frequently (surprising nobody!), and none of us have been able to notice any discernible taste difference between pre- Best By date vs post-date. If our teas are stored in a cool, dry environment and not exposed to light, they can be enjoyed long after the printed Best By date, and will retain all the flavor they had right after being hand-blended.

How much longer? Hard to say, because that depends on a lot of things from temperature to humidity to air flow around the tea. However, testing shows that flavor  isn't a problem even significantly post-date. And we're rather discerning tea fanatics here, with access to a lot of fresh as well as post-dated product to "dispose of." :)

 

The Bottom Line... What does all this mean to you?

It means you can get a great deal on clearance tea, is what! Any of our blends that are approaching their Best By dates are automatically added to our Discount section, where you can get them... at up to 70% OFF! This is a wonderful way to enjoy our teas, while also lending us a hand in correctly rotating our backstock. That’s what communiTEA is all about!