Bad aftertaste: Pesticide residues can also be found in organic herbal teas

Organic herbal tea: These are the winners

A total of 31 organic products were put under the microscope. The herbal tea blends usually consist of three ingredients, such as peppermint, lemongrass and lemon balm. The 21 test winners include numerous types of tea from well-known brands and discounters. These include:

• Alnatura herbal tea, 20 bags
• Naturgut organic herbal tea, 20 bags (Penny)
• dm organic herbal tea 20 bags
• Good organic herbal basket herbal tea, 25 bags (Aldi Süd)

Pukka Relax organic herbal tea , 20 bags

At the organic happiness tea from Sonnentor and at Teapot Organics Sleep & Dream ÖKO-TEST has nothing to complain about. In the other herbal teas, traces of pesticides or traces of the plant toxin PA (pyrrolizidine alkaloids) or (tropane alkaloids) are found, but these are not classified as questionable. So they didn’t affect the good result. Both of these toxins occur naturally in weeds, such as ragwort or henbane. Weeds can be accidentally picked during harvest and cannot be removed from the harvest afterwards.

The losers among the organic herbal teas

It looks completely different with the losers of the organic herbal teas: Here, depending on the product, in addition to the banned insecticide chlorpyrifos, an increased level of contamination with the plant toxin PA was found. Six organic products were therefore rated “unsatisfactory”. Including the organic sun organic herbs from Norma, Edeka organic herbal tea, Gepa herbal tea mixture, Lord Nelson organic organic nine herbs from Lidl and the Teehandelskontor Bremen organic herbal tea organic Blanker Hans.

Herbal tea from conventional cultivation: Discounter products are very good

In the other 19 herbal teas tested, the raw materials come from conventional cultivation. The test winners also have the upper hand here. Five products were rated “Very Good” and another four were rated “Good”. The winners include the following herbal teas:

• Captains Tea 9-herb tea, 25 bags (net)
• Lord Nelson herbs Pure, 25 bags (Lidl)
• Mivolis 49 herbal tea, loose tea ( dm)
• Tea Gschwendner gourmet herbal tea No. 1235, loose tea
• Westcliff Fennel-Anise-Caraway, 25 bags (Aldi Süd)

Here too there are traces of pesticides or a low exposure to plant toxins. However, this could not affect the good test result.

Herbal tea from conventional cultivation: Two products fail

However, two of the 19 herbal tea blends examined were not convincing . As with organic teas, the forbidden insecticide chlorpyrifos and too high a proportion of the plant toxin PA were found in the Goldmännchen tea 9-Kräuter and Müller’s Tea Stube Kräuter-Melodie. For this reason, both types of tea are rated “unsatisfactory”.

Why herbal tea has to be brewed with bubbly boiling water

To ensure that you receive safely prepared food, it is important to brew every herbal tea with boiling water (100 degrees). In this way, possible germs are killed. Since most of the raw materials for herbal tea blends come from wild collections or smaller cultures and can only be carefully harvested and dried, they can also identify an increased number of microorganisms. Despite careful processing, undesirable germs cannot be avoided in exceptional cases with natural products.