Hi everyone,
Public service announcement
We received two company gift baskets this week, both containing sample packs for Market Spice Tea.
I have an older box of MST that I enjoy drinking. It was purchased from my local grocery store. The brown box that my tea comes in, closely resembles the MST boxes that came with the gift baskets.
A coworker of mine came running into my office an hour ago asking for help, her lips and hands felt like they were burning. She'd just opened the new little boxes of sample teas that we'd received wanting to try them, and not knowing I had an older box on the counter. The tea bags didn't have strings on them and came in an aluminum pouch. She handled the tea pack with her fingers and while waiting on water brushed her fingers across her lips - causing the burning sensation.
After helping her cool down some of the sensation, we couldn't get rid of it entirely, I opened up my older box and we compared. My older tea came with strings on the tea bags, and the bags themselves are dry. The new teas we received were moist/oily and had no strings. The new ones had a very distinctive, peppery/cinnamon smell.
I told her I knew this tea was very strong, but I'd never had any problems of burning. So we called Market Spice thinking it was a bad batch that was shipped to the gift basket company. They said that MY tea (the older stuff) must be a bad batch or isn't theirs - their tea is hand made, never has strings, and frequently in the warehouse they have problems with employees accidentally touching their face and burning themselves. The teas are meant to be oily, and never stored in plastic as the oils will eventually burn through the plastic. The boxes of tea do not contain ANY warning that you should not handle the tea with your hands or that it may cause a burning sensation when in contact with skin.
So we called the gift basket company and reported the burning sensations and the information we learned from Market Spice. They're going to review their inventory and possibly change the types of tea that is placed in their baskets as a result.
We're now making public service announcements to friends and family - that if you do choose to drink this tea be cautious when handling. We're throwing out all packages with that product name on it here at our offices.
Public service announcement
We received two company gift baskets this week, both containing sample packs for Market Spice Tea.
I have an older box of MST that I enjoy drinking. It was purchased from my local grocery store. The brown box that my tea comes in, closely resembles the MST boxes that came with the gift baskets.
A coworker of mine came running into my office an hour ago asking for help, her lips and hands felt like they were burning. She'd just opened the new little boxes of sample teas that we'd received wanting to try them, and not knowing I had an older box on the counter. The tea bags didn't have strings on them and came in an aluminum pouch. She handled the tea pack with her fingers and while waiting on water brushed her fingers across her lips - causing the burning sensation.
After helping her cool down some of the sensation, we couldn't get rid of it entirely, I opened up my older box and we compared. My older tea came with strings on the tea bags, and the bags themselves are dry. The new teas we received were moist/oily and had no strings. The new ones had a very distinctive, peppery/cinnamon smell.
I told her I knew this tea was very strong, but I'd never had any problems of burning. So we called Market Spice thinking it was a bad batch that was shipped to the gift basket company. They said that MY tea (the older stuff) must be a bad batch or isn't theirs - their tea is hand made, never has strings, and frequently in the warehouse they have problems with employees accidentally touching their face and burning themselves. The teas are meant to be oily, and never stored in plastic as the oils will eventually burn through the plastic. The boxes of tea do not contain ANY warning that you should not handle the tea with your hands or that it may cause a burning sensation when in contact with skin.
So we called the gift basket company and reported the burning sensations and the information we learned from Market Spice. They're going to review their inventory and possibly change the types of tea that is placed in their baskets as a result.
We're now making public service announcements to friends and family - that if you do choose to drink this tea be cautious when handling. We're throwing out all packages with that product name on it here at our offices.
