OUR MISSION 

Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, drank a lot of liquids. An active person, Seth was continually in search of the perfect drink to quench his thirst after a run, a game of basketball or between grad school classes. Yet, Seth found most drinks either too sweet or too tasteless.

Barry Nalebuff, Seth's professor at the Yale School of Management, found that he and Seth shared a passion for the idea of a less sweet, but flavorful beverage during a class discussion of a Coke vs. Pepsi case study. They agreed that there were tons of sugary sweet options and lots of watery drinks, but in 1994, there was nothing in between to fill the void.

Fast forward to '97. Seth goes for a run in New York City with college friend who used to concoct juice drinks with him after class. As they found themselves doing the same beverage mixing after the run, Seth knew then that if he was going to quench his thirst for good, he would have to create the drink himself. He e-mailed Barry to see if he was still excited about the idea.

Timing was everything. Barry had just returned from India where he had been analyzing the tea industry for a case study. Among other things, he learned that most of the tea American companies purchased for bottling was the lower quality dust and fannings left after quality tea had been produced. Barry had even come up with a name to describe a bottled tea that was made with real tea leaves--Honest Tea. When Seth heard the name, the simmering idea began to boil--it was the perfect name for an all-natural brand that would strive to create healthy and honest relationships with its customers, suppliers and the environment.

Seth took a deep breath, quit his job at Calvert mutual funds, and started brewing batches of tea in his kitchen. Five weeks after taking the plunge, he brought thermoses of tea and a recycled bottle with a mock-up label to Fresh Fields (Whole Foods Markets). The buyer ordered 15,000 bottles, and Seth and Barry were in business--if they could figure out how to make that much tea. They did, and we're still at it. Honest.

Today, Honest Tea and Honest Ade can be found in glass and plastic bottles, and in tens of thousands of stores across the United States. The mission-driven company has applied its passion toward initiatives in the environment and partnerships with the communities that supply the tea.

 

Real Tea

At Honest Tea, we embrace the simplicity of tea – water and leaves. Ever since 2730 B.C. when the Chinese emperor Shen Nung first “discovered” tea after some leaves fell into a pot of boiling water, tea has been the world’s second most popular drink (behind water). For generations, cultures around the world have enjoyed tea grown without chemical pesticides and fertilizers and we don’t see any reason to include them in our recipes today.

Real Taste

Our goal is to create a product in which the true taste of the leaves comes through. We don’t pulverize, process, or concentrate our tea leaves. Instead we brew the whole leaf, a way that Shen Nung would still recognize. We add a touch of organic cane sugar – just enough to accentuate the tea’s natural flavor.

Honest

We strive to live up to our name in the way we conduct our business. We do this whether we are working with growers and suppliers, answering consumer questions or trying to leave a lighter environmental footprint.  In addition to being named one of The Better World Shopping Guide's "Ten Best Companies on the Planet based on their overall social and environmental record," Honest Tea was also listed as one of PlanetGreen.com's "Top 7 Green Corporations of 2010." In 2010 The Huffington Post ranked Honest Tea as one of the leading "8 Revolutionary Socially Responsible Companies."

Our Partners

At Honest Tea, we believe in strength in numbers.  We create partnerships because we feel that shared resources can help make a difference.   Here are a few examples: 

• In 2011, we converted all of our green, black, oolong, and white teas over to Fair Trade Certified™ which ensures that workers on tea gardens receive a fair share of profits, and that the tea gardens comply with specific workplace criteria for equality and fairness.  Our hope that by introducing new teas and new tastes under the Honest Tea name, we can help to create greater economic opportunity in communities seeking to become more self-sufficient.
  
• Honest Tea has had a relationship with Green America (formally known as Coop America) since 1998. We support Green America’s mission to harness economic power to create an environmentally and socially sustainable society.  Since 2005, Honest Tea has supported their annual Green Festivals across the U.S. through financial and in-kind donations. 
  
• When we launched Honest Kids in 2007, we were faced with a packaging dilemma – widely recyclable aseptic drink pouches did not exist and still do not. We partnered with TerraCycle to launch the Honest Kids Drink Pouch Brigade as a way to divert drink pouches from landfills. For each pouch collected, schools receive $0.02 and the pouches are upcycled into bags and school supplies.  The Drink Pouch Brigade has expanded to include not only the pouches of other companies, and since 2007 has collected more than 98 million used drink pouches.

 

		1998 - We launched Honest Tea in February of 1998. Our first bottles hit grocery store shelves in June of that year offering five varieties of freshly brewed and barely sweetened tea. Interested in our original business plan? Click here for the pdf! Our first account was Fresh Fields (Whole Foods), which Seth and Barry landed with the batches of tea made in Seth's kitchen. Eventually, tea production was moved to Buffalo, N.Y. We finished our first year with sales of $250,000.
		1999 - We added a few more varieties of our bottled tea in the second year and weathered our share of spoiled batches, learning as we went along. First Nation Peppermint, our first organic tea, was launched, and Decaf Ceylon joined our portfolio as a naturally decaffeinated black tea. By this time we were landing lots of new accounts including Whole Foods Markets, Wild Oats, Giant, Harris Teeter and Food Emporium. We ended our second year at $1.1 million in sales.
		2000 - Year three put us into the tea bag business in addition to our bottled beverage business. We added another organic variety, Jakarta Ginger, in the summer months and launched eight varieties of tea bags (five organic). To our delight, we became the fastest-growing bottled tea brand in natural food stores (SPINS), and our sales weighed in at $1.9 million.
		2001 - Into our fourth year more than 50% of our offerings became organic. We introduced Community Green, an organic bottled tea created in partnership with City Year, a non-profit organization that brings together young people for a year of community service. Fourth year sales were $3.2 million.
		2002 - We introduced Chamolime, an organic herbal tea made with chamomile and dried limes. We purchase the limes from a Guatemalan farm cooperative, becoming their first US customer. We also introduced Haarlem Honeybush an herbal tea produced in partnership with a farmers' cooperative in Haarlem, South Africa. In this year we became the best-selling bottled tea brand in the natural foods industry, claiming seven of the top ten best-selling varieties (SPINS). Our sales topped $4.6 million.
		2003 - We launched two new flavors, Peach Oo-la-long and Green Dragon Tea and reformulated Lori's Lemon to create a new line of "a tad sweet" teas. Peach Oo-la-long, the first Fair Trade certified bottled tea and Green Dragon Tea were our two most successful product introductions to date and the two most successful new beverages launched in the natural foods industry in 2003.
		2004 - In January, we gained full USDA organic certification on all twelve varieties of our bottled tea and eight tea bag varieties. With this certification, Honest Tea became the only tea company to offer an entire line of organic bottles and bags. We introduced a line of tea in PET-1 Bottles which was met with rave reviews and won several packaging awards. The tea bag line was re-designed to include individually overwrapped bags in response to requests from foodservice accounts. The company was again listed on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies.
		2005 - Honest Tea's first white teas were introduced in both the glass and PET bottle lines. These included Mango White Tea, Pearfect White Tea, and Vanilla Mint White Tea. Heavenly Honey Green was also introduced. In May, the company made its first foray into a non-tea product with the introduction of Honest Ade Limeade and Cranberry Lemonade organic citrus quenchers.
		2006 - The Honest Tea and Honest Ade lineups expanded even more with the addition of Pomegranate Blue (which became one of our top-selling varieties in a matter of months), Just Green Tea and Just Black Tea, two unsweetened fair trade teas. The "Just Teas" barely hit the shelves before being named a Clear Choice Award winner by the Glass Packaging Institute for excellence in packaging. The July issue of Consumer Reports runs a feature story on bottled teas and selects "An Honest Winner", Lori's Lemon gets the #1 ranking. Sales hit $13.5 million.
		2007 - We welcome new investors and board members with the launch of nine new products. New flavors that have already hit the shelves include Pomegranate White Tea with Açaî and the newest Honest Ade, Orange Mango with Mangosteen, both in plastic, and Sublime Mate (Honest Tea's first yerba mate drink) and Pomegranate Red Tea with Goji Berry in glass. Our Just Green and Just Black are the first of our teas available in 64-oz. bottles. This spring we will be launching our much-anticipated new line, Honest Kids, with three flavors of low-sugar organic thirst quenchers - Goodness Grapeness, Tropical Tango Punch, and Berry Berry Good Lemonade!
		2008 - We celebrated our 10th anniversary in February and also announced that The Coca-Cola Company purchased 40 percent of Honest Tea, presenting opportunities for even further growth and expansion nationwide. Five new flavors included Citrus Green Energy Tea, Peach White Tea, Lemon Black Tea in 16.9 oz. PET bottles, as well as Citrus Spice Decaf and Jasmine Green Energy Tea in 16 oz. glass bottles. Consumer Reports again ranks Lori's Lemon as the best bottled tea in its May issue ...
		2009 - We continued to push the envelope of sustainability by introducing a new plastic bottle that is 22 percent lighter, conserving over a million pounds of packaging material from the production line each year. The first few tries weren't perfect, as we dealt with dented bottles and puzzled consumers. We were awarded Greenopia.com's coveted 4-Leaf Rating "the greenest beverage company" and partnered with the Sierra Club for a national marketing program. We launched two new Honest Kids varieties, Super Fruit Punch and Appley Ever After, which earned its name from an online contest inviting kids to submit imaginative names online. We launched Honest Kombucha an innovative line with active probiotic cultures that promote digestive health. Additionally, we introduced Mango Green Tea, and expanded our mate offerings by creating Honest Mate, with two new varieties, Agave Mate and Tropical Mate. With our support, Bethesda Green cuts the vine on a new green business incubator down the street from our headquarters. Sales hit $47 million.
		2010 - We started the year off strong by introducing six new refreshing varieties in the first quarter. We launched Maqui Berry Grapefruit and Apple Jasmine Honest Kombucha, Half & Half and 64 fl. oz. Honest Kids in Super Fruit Punch and Berry Berry Lemonade. We rolled out four of our most popular PET varieties into America’s leading retail pharmacy, CVS, in 7,000 stores nationwide. We created a national presence in the second quarter by expanding into new markets, including the southeast and Chicago. In honor of Earth month, we launched a reusable shopping bag program and helped to plant 10,000 trees. By December, we reluctantly said goodbye to Honest Kombucha and prepared to bring another innovative line to market in 2011. We were awarded Greenopia.com’s coveted 4-Leaf Rating as “the greenest beverage company” for the second year in a row, listed as one of PlanetGreen.com's "Top 7 Green Corporations of 2010" and recently ranked by The Huffington Post as one of the leading "8 Revolutionary Socially Responsible Companies," and The Washington Post named us one of the top five companies of the year. Sales hit $71.5 million.
		2011 - In March, The Coca-Cola Company purchased Honest Tea, bringing us into the Coke family as an independent operating unit. We continued to innovate by developing a new beverage line called Honest CocoaNova, a cacao infusion with the antioxidants and alkaloid theobromine found in dark chocolate and only 50 calories per bottle. We transitioned all of our green, black, oolong, and white teas over to Fair Trade Certified™, and introduced five new varieties: Mocha, Cherry, and Mint CocoaNova; Zero Calorie Lemonade, and Classic Green Tea. We're also very proud of our second-annual Mission Report, "Keeping It Honest." A project several years in the making finally came to fruition--we refreshed the labels on our plastic-bottled beverages, updating artwork and transitioning the Nutrition Facts panel to reflect the new serving size of one bottle=one serving.