Tazo Awake English Breakfast Black Tea (20ct filterbags)
Summary
Tazo Awake English Breakfast scores 32/100. The tea itself is the cleanest of the Tazo bagged lineup — a single-ingredient malty black tea blend with no flavor additives. The score is dragged down almost entirely by the delivery system: the rectangular filterbag is paper heat-sealed with polypropylene, and brewing it at 95 °C releases billions of micro- and nanoplastic particles directly into the cup (Hernandez et al. 2019; Banaei et al. 2024). If you brew the same blend loose in a stainless-steel infuser, you keep the antioxidant payload and lose nearly all of the downside.
At a glance
Key ingredients 2
Polypropylene tea bag (Microplastic shedding)Very Bad
Tazo's standard rectangular filterbags are paper heat-sealed with polypropylene. Hernandez et al. 2019 (Environ. Sci. Technol., McGill) measured ~11.6 billion microplastic and ~3.1 billion nanoplastic particles released per cup from plastic-containing tea bags brewed at 95 °C. Banaei et al. 2024 (Chemosphere, UAB Barcelona) confirmed polypropylene bags shed ~1.2 billion particles per mL and demonstrated particle uptake by human intestinal cells in vitro. There is no established safe exposure threshold for chronic ingestion of polypropylene nanoplastics from food contact materials.
See more about Polypropylene tea bag (Microplastic shedding) →Black Tea (Assam, Ceylon, Kenyan blend)Very Good
Black tea is rich in theaflavins, thearubigins, and catechins. Habitual consumption is associated with modest improvements in endothelial function and LDL cholesterol (Hodgson 2008 meta-analysis). Naturally contains caffeine (~40-60 mg per cup) and ~25 mg L-theanine, which smooths the stimulant curve.
See more about Black Tea (Assam, Ceylon, Kenyan blend) →Processing
Ultra-Processed Foods
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