USDA Organic Hand-Grown Teas
All of the teas are hand-grown in keeping with principles of small-scale agriculture. The steps for our process are detailed below:
Start seeds by hand for annual plants in our greenhouse each spring.
Plant those small seedlings out in the fields between April and June by hand.
Weed or cultivate the plantings with specialty hoes and with hand weeding.
Harvest by hand with hand pruners into large bins.
Lay the harvested herbs out onto drying racks (4 by 4 by 8’ tall) in the drying building.
Once dry, garble the herb leaves off of the stems by hand.
Package herb leaves for bulk storage until packaging by hand.
Pack the herb leaves into tea bags or loose-leaf bags, and then into exterior packaging.
The Estate Grown Difference
We describe our tea herbs as “Estate Grown” on our farm in Cherry Valley (Burgettstown, PA). The only exceptions here are the orange peel in the Rose Orange Tea and the cinnamon chips in the Cinnamon Apple.
Founded in 2001 by Jodi Danyo, Cherry Valley Organics began as a one-third-acre “urban farm” in the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton. Our farm now encompasses approximately 36 acres in nearby Cherry Valley, Washington County, PA, and has grown into one of the leading producers of organic products in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Despite this expansion, the footprint of the operation is still quite small with farming operations encompassing less than 9 acres.
USDA Certified Organic
Organic seeds and planting stock.
Organic physical and preventative means are taken before controlling disease and pests with sprays.
CVO utilizes insect netting/row cover on our organically grown products, and only use biological sprays as a last resort. For diseases, we ensure that the plants are planted in such a way and in a location that promotes good air circulation and prevents foliar disease.
Crops are rotated each year.
Cleaning and sanitation of equipment with organic approved materials.
Like Sanidate.
All of the organic requirements for our farm are met by writing and following an Organic System Plan.
New construction on the farm is done without treated lumber or highly toxic materials.
Soil management planning and strategy is implemented to build soil health over time.
Our soil nutrient content and other factors of soil health are consistently rated as “Optimal", according to Cornell Soil Health Studies through PASA, despite many harvests of agricultural products.
Growing Methods and Soil
CVO organic practices and growing methods feed and protect our plants and improve our soil. These methods allow the soil to retain nutrients and improve soil structure over time, creating an ecosystem that is healthy and sustainable for the long-term. We enrich the soil with compost that we purchase from AgRecycle.
A lot of our customers tell us that our veggies, particularly our onion family and winter squash, have especially good flavor. We attribute this to our growing methods and soil.
Organic Quotes
“Because they’re not protected by pesticides, organic plants that suffer from insect attack can accumulate higher level of flavor chemicals and other protective molecules, including antioxidants.”
- Harold McGee, food guru, culinary scientist, and cookery writer.
"Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations."
– United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Our Herbal Teas Taste Amazing
Not only is our tea good for you and good for this wonderful planet- it tastes amazing! Being organic and responsibly grown and packaged doesn't compromise quality, it enhances it.
Fresh herbs are wonderfully fragant and potent.
The traditional drying process for herbs concentrates this potency, but often removes some of the nuanced flavors, especially if the herbs are crushed releasing all of the plant essential oils/essence. This is why if tea leaves are left whole until brewed, the cup of tea is more flavorful.
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Our tea bags do not contain "tea dust."
The teabags that we create do not contain “tea dust.” Instead, because they are hand-filled, they contain the whole leaves of the herbs (not crushed leaves). We recommend massaging your tea bag before brewing to release the tea's full flavor.
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CVO Sacred Basil
When first considering herbal teas, we were of course experimenting with a bunch of different herbs. We fell in love with sacred basil right away. Our sacred basil, Kapoor Tulsi Basil, has this amazing fruity sweet and cinnamon-clove aroma that other earthy, flavorless Tulsi teas on the market just don’t have - tea bag or not.
The primary distinction to be made with Tulsi is that ours is made from the plant Ocimum tenuiflorum, Kapoor Tulsi Basil. The other brands are using different herbs like Holy Basil, Ocimum sanctum (Krishna and Rama varieties), and East Indian Basil (Ocimum gratissimum (Vana variety)). So, if you haven’t tried our Tulsi, you probably haven’t experienced the wonderful flavor Kapoor Tulsi has to offer!
Why Specialty Basils?
Around 2005-2006, specialty basils were all the rage in the culinary world (and perhaps they still are!). We were seeing chefs ask for Cinnamon Basil, Persian Anise Basil, and Lemon and Lime Basils and once we started growing them, using them as tea ingredients was a natural evolution. Ironically, this is not a jump that we’ve seen any other company really make, and maybe that’s because they are not approaching tea from a growing perspective. And, maybe society is too focused on Italian basil that you eat in your spaghetti, and we’re not focused on drinking these other specialty basils. The health benefits of basil are many (anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, aids digestion, the list goes on).
Many of the CVO Tea Blends contain a Specialty Basil...
Tulsi
Sacred Basil
Cinnamon Apple
Cinnamon Basil
Lemon
Lemon Basil
Licorice
Persian Anise Basil
CVO Mint Herbal Teas
Peppermint
Spearmint
Happy Blend
Mint, chamomile, lemon balm, and borage.
Cinnamon Apple
Contains apple mint.
Scents of the Tea Herbs
For Jodi, President and Founder of Cherry Valley Organics, there is also some childhood nostalgia associated with the CVO tea herbs. She grew up very much in a conventional household, so they ate Doritos (not the organic ones, they didn’t have those yet), Mountain Dew, and lots of other less than healthy food items. Jodi's Mom, who happens to be the most ruthless cleaner that she knows, would also use a full suite of highly toxic chemicals to clean their house (said with kindness and respect for the best parents anyone could ask for).
She said, "whenever I am working with some of our herbs, I am reminded of my childhood in sort of odd ways. For example, whenever I work with lemon verbena, I am taken back to the days of my Mom spraying Lemon Pledge all over every inch of wooden furniture in our house. And, when I work with Tulsi, it reminds me oddly of some combination of Carefree bubble gum (which we chewed a lot back in those days) and cinnamon."
Herbs are responsible for influencing so many of the scents we experience in products today, even when those scents are now synthetic.
Organic from Day One
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Feb 12, 2021
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Feb 12, 2021
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