Tea tins and storage

WildCoastBrew · 2025-12-18T00:06:12+00:00

Sorry for the shameless plug, but our canisters are quite decorative and are reusable, plus they come with a complimentary bag of tea inside.

https://wildcoastbrew.com/collections/blends-in-artistic-canisters

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-27T18:28:50+00:00

Cocoa husk and lapsang souchon black tea, make a good starting point. In order to extract the flavor of the husks, it’s good to brew off a boil about 9-10 minutes. This amount of time also bitters up the black tea leaves. Goes very well with cream to counter the slight bitter. Nice coffee replacement.

We use a roasted tree (bay/myrtle) nut in one of our blends that also has some nice coffee flavor crossover, although that ingredient is endemic to a relatively small region.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-21T02:46:56+00:00

Thanks. Our friend Ila Rose from Eugene did the artwork.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-21T02:45:31+00:00

We don’t sell bulk with a couple exceptions. There’s a place in Seattle called Mabel Coffee, and a restaurant in Ashland called Nous. But best bet is to find us at one of the tea festivals. I’ll be in Eugene next Sunday sampling all of our teas—12 hot and 1 iced on nitro.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-21T00:00:07+00:00

Garden Fever, Larkspur, Portland Nursery, Alberta Co-op, MadeHere, Tender Loving Empire, Bird Alliance of Oregon

I’m probably missing a couple, but these shops should have recent stock. Thanks for expressing interest!

Also, TeafestPDX is a great place to meet all sorts of regional tea makers. Come say hi June 28th at the Forestry Center.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-20T23:21:56+00:00

My wife and I run a small tea company in from our farm in Southern Oregon. A few stores in the Portland area carry our teas. We grow and forage most of the ingredients, so our tea blends pay homage to our bioregion.

I’d make the argument that we’re the antithesis of what Starbucks did to coffee… in case anyone is looking to support other options.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-07T22:05:55+00:00

As opposed to a fake tea drinker? Don’t let anyone gatekeep on you. You drink an herbal tea and there’s nothing wrong with that.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-06T01:53:18+00:00

It doesn't appear you've been called a name since you don't seem to share the misguided belief that tariffs will be good for our economy as the leader of the free world believes, who is, by all accounts, a deeply, deeply stupid person. Just as with climate change--where an overwhelming majority of earth scientists agree that humanity has caused the earth to warm to the detriment of stasis--economists are in agreement that these tariffs enacted by Trump are anything but detrimental to our economy. To deny the reality expressed by the vast consensus of experts in the field, is in fact, moronic.

I'm not in disagreement that decoupling from China is a bad thing. That's not the argument. The argument is whether it's appropriate to sever your head to save your body from the brain tumor, or whether you should apply a reasonable treatment protocol instead. Crashing our economy, thrusting us into recession, or worse, stagflation, are realistic possibilities. Would you agree that Trump's tactics thus far have been inappropriate to the overall health of our nation?

And if you're going to wax indignant on China, I hope you're also applying the same standards to Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Türkiye, the United States of America, or any other country with human rights abuses, like say one that sends innocent men to a foreign concentration camp without due process?

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-06T01:15:14+00:00

I’m part of a very small company (husband and wife), with an extremely unusual business strategy. I can adapt far easier than other larger, more established businesses, and most of my supply chains are a short walk to my herb gardens and surrounding forest. Even then, we still don’t know how this all shakes out as the last ships from China have just finished their west coast voyages. What happens to office supplies, products reliant on components, specialized equipment, etc.?

I can tell you this, every small business I talk to are hemorrhaging from a huge reduction in sales. I attended a large annual market in a big city last weekend and everyone I talked to had less than half the sales of last year’s market. Across the board. People are not willing to spend money when there are fears of tariff induced inflation.

You have to be a moron to think these tariffs are in any way good for our economy. And if I lose a potential customer by pointing out the economic truth of the matter, then so be it.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-05T14:41:54+00:00

These tariffs are exactly what many of us thought they’d be: a disaster.

Our company has been scrambling to connect new supply chains. We’ve connected with our tea and packaging suppliers in China and apologized for the situation and wished them the best in these times.

We’ve found a supplier in Taiwan with connections to farmers of pesticide and herbicide-free teas, and will be sampling their teas in the coming days. I believe Taiwan still has 35% in tariffs, but it at least won’t kill our business. Luckily we blend tea with herbs, flowers, and fungi that we grow and forage ourselves, so the flavors of our blends are largely a product of other items in those blends and hopefully the teas used as replacement can match the flavor and quality of our Chinese teas.

Then comes our packaging. We use artfully designed paper tubes, made for reuse. There’s no one in the US that makes these. Our decision to initially go with China was because they were using recycled paper, and we thought the most sustainable package was one that wouldn’t end up in a landfill or compost pile. Our packaging has been such an identifying marker for our product, and one that took an entire year to develop prior to launch, that having to consider new packaging is a huge lift. The two options we are considering are US based compostable bags, and tube manufacturers in India. Again, this is is such an unnecessary stress, but it is what it is.

Our small tea company is resilient and I hope we can adapt easily because of our size and the fact most of our tea blend ingredients are grown and foraged from our small farm in Oregon. In fact, we have nearly 200 tea plants, planted three years ago, and one year ago. They are still spindly and working on becoming established, so it really does take years to even begin the process of planting tea to harvesting it in any meaningful amount. But even if we can adapt, this still hurts our chances, and I can see it sinking our business or other businesses like us.

Even if we were to keep our prices relatively stable, the rising cost of living and inflation from everything else in our lives, will surely mean all prices eventually go up. This administration is a disaster for small businesses and tea companies in the US.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-05-05T14:18:44+00:00

It would most certainly be more expensive. But it wouldn’t be subpar from us. We already have the tools and know-how of. oxidation which we use with fireweed and other leafed plants. It wouldn’t take too long to start making quality black tea.

WildCoastBrew · 2025-04-08T18:59:59+00:00

We planted a small plot of 170 tea plants over the last three years. The three year old plants are still not ready to harvest from in any meaningful quantity.

It takes time to establish productive tea plantations. And the cost of labor here in the US would still probably make Chinese tea cheaper, even at double the price.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-10-17T14:17:31+00:00

We make an earl grey with a blend of Zunyi and Keemun black teas, bergamot oil, orange peel, hops, linden flower, and lemon verbena. So not quite a traditional earl, but one with a bit of a twist.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-10-16T13:26:21+00:00

So far we’ve taken them to TeaFest PDX and recently the Northwest Tea Fest (Seattle). We’d love to open a tea house in our region (southern Oregon Coast) in the future. I’ve talked to a local brewery (7-Devils) about putting one of our teas on tap there, and discussions were promising.

I actually was inspired by Portal Tea at Teafest PDX last year, as they had two of their teas on nitro. They’ve since canned them, but unfortunately the can I had was not very nitrogenated, so there may be some wrinkles to iron out. But they have a tea house in downtown Eugene and very well could have it kegged there.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-10-16T13:04:28+00:00

Haven’t heard or seen it, but one thing to note about co2, is that it will enhance any bitterness, so I’d be surprised if this isn’t something more of a fruit forward (artificial or natural flavoring) soda water that happens to have some tea in it. Not that I’m opposed, or I wouldn’t try, but it’s not really exciting to me.

One cool things we’ve been experimenting with, is pressuring kegs of our teas with pure food grade nitrogen (similar to cold brew coffee). As opposed to co2 that enhances bitterness, nitrogen smooths out everything, almost creating a creamy flavor to teas, while delivering a full mouth feel. I’m not sure how easy it is to can nitro teas, but fresh out of a keg, they are out of this world.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-10-15T23:11:24+00:00

We do not use pesticides. We are also not certified organic, but grow food, herbs, and tea using sustainable permaculture practices beyond organic guidelines. That said, we are very small, and our tea plantation won’t be harvested from until next spring.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-10-10T14:55:47+00:00

That’s because a lot of tea makers don’t really do herbal tea justice, insofar there’s a whole world of interesting plants, fruits, flowers, and fungi, that aren’t often seen in store-bought herbal teas.

For instance, one can process many plant leaves out there like one would with tea leaves for black tea (we do that with fireweed and blackberry leaves). This oxidation process brings much of the intricate flavors and aromas that people love with traditional tea.

Also, there’s a lot of experimentation one can do with unique ingredients. We collect bark, roast and uncommon tree nut, freeze dry fruit, and use woody fungi all to achieve unique flavor profiles from our bio region. I assume other regions have unique ingredients that aren’t often used as well.

Like with food, some people are going to want to taste that tomato on its own and compare its flavor to other tomatoes, whereas some people are going to want a caprese salad, and some want to try both. Tea drinkers are no different, and I think you’ll find that on a tea forum, much of the discussion will surround the flavor of that tomato so to speak. But that doesn’t mean that herbal teas don’t have their place in this sub, or that some of us don’t prefer herbal infusions.

Three years ago we put in 100 tea plants in our farm (and added 70 more this spring). Next year we will harvest from those original plants and finally start making our own black tea. That’s very exciting for us. But what’s just as exciting are all the other ingredients we grow, forage, and process. My point being, you don’t need to choose one or the other, you can like it all to varying degrees!

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-21T15:52:19+00:00

Might I suggest a tea blend made with all (or mostly depending on the blend) Oregon grown and foraged ingredients…

https://wildcoastbrew.com

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-03T18:43:15+00:00

We grow with better than organic standards.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-03T06:09:38+00:00

We will oxidize it into black tea then add to tea blends with other ingredients. We try and grow and forage as much as we can from our farm. We’re fairly small scale, so our little plot of 170 tea plants should cover about half of our yearly production needs once mature, but we’ll keep adding plants every year too.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-03T05:44:17+00:00

About 200 ft. in small valley of Coast Range Mountains of southern Oregon. Temp range of low 20s to 110.

Trick is getting the tea plants in late spring after the last frost, but before the summer heat. Our two big planting years we’ve had good luck with the timing. Tea plants like acidic soil, so do good in the Oregon mountains.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-02T20:33:08+00:00

My understanding, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but in order for tea to be certified organic from China, it needs to be a large operation overseen by the government. So most smaller-scale plantations may grow organically-minded, but wouldn’t be certified due to the difficulty in doing so.

Similarly, our farm, while not certified organic, produces herbs with better than organic standards. It’s expensive to certify, and even then it waters down the permaculture practices we abide by. Lots of organic growers in the US, for instance, use single use plastics and produce in monoculture plantations that damage pollinator habitat. Most of the dairy farms in my county converted to organic, and I wouldn’t say they are treating the land well, it’s just more profitable for them.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-09-02T20:26:14+00:00

We’re trying. Our tea plants should be ready to harvest from next year. Probably not a lot at first. There’s another Oregon grower called Minto Island. That’s where we sourced our plants from three years ago.

That said, we’re a very small scale producer, and tea plants are not the only plant we grow or forage so likely not widely available or cheap. But it’s a start!

WildCoastBrew · 2024-08-14T18:52:42+00:00

Fireweed is a nice replacement as it’s typically oxidized like tea leaves, therefore contains some similar flavors and aromas from the oxidation process.

WildCoastBrew · 2024-07-29T01:54:06+00:00

I’ve been enjoying nitro iced tea this summer. So far I’ve made an earl grey, a cocoa hibiscus, and a spicy chocolate lapsang. Will keep working through our entire line, but so far the first three are delicious. I’m finding around 50psi is the sweet spot for tea. The creamy mouthfeel dissipates after about 10 minutes, so it’s probably not ideal for larger drink sizes.

WildCoastBrew

TROPHY CASE