In our product data in October 2026, 43 active Teabox teas list at least one certification held by their estate: 38 list Rainforest Alliance, 24 the Ethical Tea Partnership, 10 USDA Organic and 5 Fair Trade Certified. Each tea’s certification is shown on its own product page; the estate certificates behind them are renewed season by season, so the product page is the place to check.
Which Teabox teas carry which certifications?
In October 2026, 43 active Teabox teas list an estate certification: 38 Rainforest Alliance, 24 Ethical Tea Partnership, 10 USDA Organic and 5 Fair Trade Certified. The table shows examples from each; every certification belongs to the estate that grew and made the tea.Read more
| Tea | Region | Certifications listed |
|---|---|---|
| Korakundah Winter Frost Black | Nilgiris | USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified, Rainforest Alliance |
| Seeyok Summer Muscatel Black | Darjeeling | USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified |
| Samabeong Spring Black | Darjeeling | USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified |
| Banaspaty Summer Black | Assam | USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified; Elephant Friendly per its description |
| Okayti Summer Chinary Black | Darjeeling | USDA Organic, Rainforest Alliance |
| Glenburn Spring Moonshine Oolong | Darjeeling | USDA Organic, Rainforest Alliance |
| Temi Summer Chinary Black | Sikkim | USDA Organic, Ethical Tea Partnership |
| Castleton Summer Muscatel Black | Darjeeling | Rainforest Alliance, Ethical Tea Partnership |
| Havukal Winter Frost Black | Nilgiris | Rainforest Alliance, Ethical Tea Partnership |
| Halmari Summer Black | Assam | Rainforest Alliance |
Korakundah, at about 8,000 feet, is the only tea in our current range that lists organic, fair trade and Rainforest Alliance together. Its product page calls the estate “a pioneer in sustainable and organic tea cultivation.”
The estate’s certificate list is longer than the product page shows. In our 2019 supplier records, Korakundah held Rainforest Alliance, Japan’s JAS organic standard, ISO 9000, ISO 14001, IMO organic to the US program, fair trade and the Ethical Tea Partnership. For Nilgiri frost teas, see Winter and frost teas.
Ninety-five of our active products, including the chais, blends and teaware as well as many single-estate teas, list no certification at all.
What is the best fair trade tea?
There is no single best fair trade tea: the label tells you how the tea was traded, not how it tastes. Choose the style you enjoy first, then look for the seal.
Among our Fair Trade Certified teas, Seeyok Summer Muscatel is a Darjeeling summer tea from a biodynamic garden, Korakundah Winter Frost a high-grown Nilgiri black, and Banaspaty Summer Black a malty Assam with hints of yellow apricot. That last note is from our launch post for the tea in 2021.
Each of the three tells a different fair trade story. Seeyok has farmed organically since 1994 and calls itself “a Fairtrade pioneer in the Himalayas.” Banaspaty, a 160-acre garden near Kaziranga, supports more than 400 workers and their families alongside its elephant corridors.
If you want a fair trade tea for every day, start with the Banaspaty, which takes milk well like most Assam teas. If you want one to drink plain and slowly, choose the Seeyok muscatel. For the regions behind them, see Darjeeling tea and Assam tea.
How do we decide what a product page says?
A product page names a certification only when our product data lists it for that tea, and the certification it names is the estate’s, not ours.Read more
Each product’s certification field records what its estate holds. We do not call a tea organic because a garden farms gently, or because its region is organic: Sikkim is a fully organic state, yet of our two Temi teas only the summer tea lists USDA Organic in that field.
Our own certificates sit one step down the chain, and they run for fixed terms. Teabox held a Rainforest Alliance certificate from April 2021 to April 2024, and organic handling certificates from September 2016 to September 2025. The certifications on our product pages today describe the estates.
Certificates change from season to season, and our data does not always keep up. When it disagrees with itself, this guide leaves the claim off rather than guess.
Keep reading
Sources
- Teabox Tea 101: Certified organic teas; Teas and Fairtrade certification; Rainforest Alliance certified teas; Geographical Indication (GI)
- Teabox blog (Still Steeping): 4 common myths on organic farming (2014); Assam Diaries: The Jalans at Chota Tingrai (2016); A Full Moon Harvest: Farming Biodynamically (2021); Exploring Co-Existing Spaces: Wildlife and Tea (2021); Covid-19 (2020)
- Teabox blog (Still Steeping): A Secret Tea Garden in the Clouds (2015); In Kangra, for a tour of the tea gardens (2017); The Beginner’s Guide to Choosing a Darjeeling (2017); Toda Embroidery from the Nilgiris (2017); On a food trail through the Nilgiris (2016)
- Teabox blog (Still Steeping) stories: Pesticides in Tea and What You Should Know About It, 2016; “Natural” teas: The rewards, the risks and the watch-outs!, 2016; The chemistry of tea: a lab, not a leaf, 2016; Clonals: the tea of the future, 2016; The Delight of Margaret’s Hope, 2016; The Future of Darjeeling’s Tea, 2015; Rising from the embers, 2015
- Teabox product data: certification fields and estate descriptions, read 16 and 21 October 2026
- Teabox records: our own certificates and licenses (organic handling, Rainforest Alliance, food safety, Tea Board and FSSAI licenses), our organic certifier’s 2019 letter of certification, and our 2019 records of supplier estates and their certificates
- Teabox Drive: Teabox internal document, 2022; Teabox internal document; Teabox internal document; Teabox internal document; Teabox internal document; Teabox internal document
- Teabox on Instagram (@teabox.tea): Craigmore, Jan 2016, Margaret’s Hope, Apr 2019, Sikkim and Temi, Jul 2019, Tea Promoters India, Jul 2020, Rainforest Alliance, Apr 2021, Seeyok, Jun 2021, wildlife estates, Jul 2021, Banaspaty, Aug 2021, tea and wildlife, Sep 2021, what organic means, Sep 2021
- Kausshal Dugarr on X (@Teapreneur): traceability, Sep 2019, women pickers, Mar 2022; Teabox on X (@TeaboxTea): Rainforest Alliance, May 2021
Leave a comment
All comments are moderated before being published.
This site is protected by hCaptcha and the hCaptcha Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.