Celestial Seasonings tea is generally safe to drink, but there are a few legitimate concerns worth knowing about. The brand has faced scrutiny over pesticide residues, plastic in its tea bags, and questions about its “natural flavors” labeling. None of these issues make the tea acutely dangerous, but they’re worth understanding if you drink it regularly.
Pesticide Residues in Celestial Seasonings Tea
The most notable safety concern surfaced in 2013, when an independent lab (Eurofins, commissioned by Glaucus Research) tested 11 Celestial Seasonings teas and found that 10 of them contained pesticide residues exceeding federally defined tolerance levels, or pesticides that lacked regulatory guidance entirely. That’s a striking number, though it’s worth noting that trace pesticide residues are common across the conventional tea industry, not just in Celestial Seasonings products.
Celestial Seasonings is not certified organic. That means its ingredients aren’t held to the stricter pesticide-free standards required for organic certification. If pesticide exposure is a priority for you, choosing an organic-certified tea brand is the most straightforward way to reduce your risk. For occasional drinkers, the residue levels found in conventional teas are unlikely to cause harm in isolation, but the cumulative effect of daily exposure over years is harder to measure.
Plastic in the Tea Bags
Like many major tea brands, Celestial Seasonings uses tea bags that contain plastic. This matters because when you steep a tea bag in hot water, that plastic can break down and release tiny particles into your cup. One widely cited study found that a single plastic-containing tea bag steeped at brewing temperature released roughly 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into the water.
The health effects of ingesting microplastics are still being studied, but the sheer volume of particles released has prompted concern from environmental and health organizations. The Center for Environmental Health has specifically called on Celestial Seasonings to switch to plastic-free tea bags. To the company’s credit, it eliminated the plastic overwrap on its boxes, saving an estimated 165,000 pounds of plastic per year. But the bags themselves still contain plastic.
If this concerns you, there’s a simple workaround: cut open the tea bag and steep the loose contents in a stainless steel or glass infuser. You get the same tea without the plastic exposure.
What “Natural Flavors” Actually Means
Many Celestial Seasonings blends list “natural flavors” as an ingredient, and that label is vaguer than it sounds. The Environmental Working Group flags this as a transparency issue: “natural flavors” can refer to complex mixtures of chemicals used to modify taste and smell, and companies aren’t required to disclose what’s in them. For most people this is harmless, but it’s a real concern if you have unusual food allergies or follow a restricted diet, since you can’t verify exactly what you’re consuming.
The brand has also faced a class action lawsuit alleging that its teas contain synthetic citric acid while being marketed as “naturally flavored” and free from artificial ingredients. The plaintiffs argued that the citric acid was synthetically produced (not derived from citrus fruit) and used as a flavoring agent to add tartness. Synthetic citric acid is considered safe to consume and appears in thousands of food products, so the concern is more about honest labeling than health risk.
Herbal Ingredients and Caffeine
Celestial Seasonings makes both caffeinated teas (green tea, black tea blends) and caffeine-free herbal teas. The herbal blends typically include ingredients like chamomile, peppermint, rosehips, chicory, and eleuthero (a plant sometimes called Siberian ginseng). These botanicals have long histories of safe use in teas, and at the concentrations found in a single cup, they pose minimal risk for most adults.
That said, some herbal ingredients can interact with medications or aren’t recommended during pregnancy. Chamomile, for instance, may increase the effect of blood-thinning medications. Eleuthero, found in some of the green tea blends, can affect blood pressure. If you take prescription medications or are pregnant, it’s worth checking the specific ingredient list on the blend you drink most often.
How to Reduce Any Risks
- Choose organic alternatives if pesticide exposure concerns you. Celestial Seasonings’ conventional sourcing means trace residues are possible.
- Ditch the bag by emptying the tea into a metal or glass infuser to avoid microplastic exposure from hot water breaking down the bag material.
- Read the ingredient list on each specific blend, especially if you have allergies, since “natural flavors” won’t tell you exactly what’s inside.
- Rotate your brands rather than drinking the same tea exclusively, which limits your cumulative exposure to any single source of contaminants.
For most people drinking a cup or two a day, Celestial Seasonings tea isn’t a significant health hazard. The concerns are real but fall into the category of low-level, long-term exposure risks rather than acute dangers. The biggest variable you can control is whether you steep the bag itself or use the loose contents instead.