Hempthy CBD Infused Tea Bags 160mg (Hemp & Peppermint)

The line on the label about THC, and why it cannot mean what it looks like

The brand's ingredient declaration for this tea, and for two of its other three, ends with a statement that the hemp in it is two tenths of one per cent THC or below.

That figure is real, but it is not a description of what you are allowed to buy. It is a crop standard. It describes the THC content permitted in industrial hemp grown under licence, in the field, before anything is made from it. It was never a consumer product limit.

The test that applies to a box of tea sitting on a shelf in the UK is completely different. It is a limit on controlled cannabinoids per container: one milligram of THC and CBN combined, in the whole pack, however large the pack is and however much of anything else is in there.

Those two things are not different ways of saying the same thing, and here is the argument that settles it without needing to know anything about this particular box. A percentage does not change when the container gets bigger. Two tenths of one per cent is two tenths of one per cent whether the box holds one tea bag or a hundred. The legal test does change, because it counts the total. So a percentage figure, on its own, cannot tell you whether a pack complies. It is not a stricter or a looser answer to the question. It is an answer to a different question.

To be completely clear about what we are and are not saying. We are not telling you this pack is over the limit, because we do not know and neither does anyone quoting that line. We are telling you the label is using the wrong measure, and that the only thing that would actually settle it is a batch certificate of analysis stating milligrams. We have asked our distributor for one.

There is a second oddity worth noting while we are here. Our own product data records the CBD in this tea as an isolate, and a pure isolate carries no THC at all, which would make a THC percentage statement pointless. The declaration itself reads hemp with cannabidiol, which is not the same thing as isolate. The label does not agree with itself, and that is another reason to want the paperwork.

The one flavour in the range whose declaration omits the percentage line entirely is the English Breakfast, which simply lists Indian black tea and hemp.

Two ingredient lists for one box

While checking the declaration we found that two sources describe this tea differently, and one of them is the brand.

One seller lists the hemp and peppermint blend as peppermint leaves, lemon pieces and hemp with cannabidiol. Three ingredients, which is what you would expect from a peppermint tea.

The brand's own page for the same blend lists ginger, liquorice, peppermint, lemon granulate, green mate, natural cassia flavour, chocolate shells, black pepper, and hemp with cannabidiol. That second list is word for word the brand's declaration for its Lemon and Ginger tea, published elsewhere under that name.

So one of those pages is showing the wrong flavour's ingredients, and we cannot tell you which from the outside.

This matters more than a typo would. Green mate is caffeinated. Liquorice is a thing plenty of people avoid for their own reasons, and so are black pepper and chocolate. Somebody choosing a peppermint tea for the evening deserves a straight answer about whether there is caffeine in it, and right now the published information does not give one.

We are publishing both lists rather than picking the one we prefer, we have asked the brand which is correct, and until it is answered anyone with a reason to avoid caffeine, liquorice or chocolate should read this box as unresolved rather than assume the shorter list is right.

How much of the sixteen milligrams gets into your cup

This is the question nobody selling CBD tea wants to answer, and it deserves a straight one.

Sixteen milligrams of CBD is in the tea bag. That is a statement about the bag, not about the drink. CBD is lipophilic, which means it dissolves readily in fats and oils and very poorly in water. Steeping it in hot water is not an efficient way to move it from the leaf into the cup.

That is chemistry rather than a claim about anything, and it applies to every CBD tea on the market regardless of brand. It is also why the traditional workaround is to add milk, or anything else with some fat in it, and why the brand suggests a long steep of five to ten minutes rather than the two or three minutes a peppermint tea would normally need.

None of which makes this a bad product. It makes the number on the front of the box a description of what went in rather than what comes out, and you should read it that way. If a precise and repeatable amount of CBD is what you are after, a tea is the wrong format and an oil or a capsule is the right one.

The box, the brew and the rest of the range

Ten bags, sixteen milligrams each, a hundred and sixty across the box. The bags are biodegradable. The brand asks for five to ten minutes in hot water, that you reseal the box after each use, and that you finish it within twelve months of opening.

The resealing instruction is not packaging boilerplate on this one. Peppermint is volatile and loses its edge quickly once air gets to it, and an opened box left loose will taste noticeably flatter within weeks.

Hempthy makes four teas: this hemp and peppermint, an English Breakfast, a Lemon and Ginger, and a Camomile and Hemp. All four carry the same hundred and sixty milligrams across ten bags. We stock the peppermint.

As a drink it is a decent peppermint tea. Clean, sharp, no bitterness if you do not push the steep past ten minutes, and no hemp flavour to speak of. If the shorter of the two declarations is the right one, the lemon pieces round it off slightly rather than making it taste of lemon.

Who should skip this box

Anyone who needs to know exactly how much CBD they are having. A tea cannot tell you that, for the solubility reason above, and no amount of confident labelling changes it.

Anyone avoiding caffeine who cannot wait for the ingredient question to be answered. Until the brand confirms which declaration is right, we cannot promise you this box is caffeine free.

Anyone who does not like peppermint. It is the only tea in the range we stock, and it is a proper peppermint rather than a mild one.

Anyone who wants the THC question closed before they buy. It is a fair position to take and we would rather you took it than we talked you round. Ask us again when the certificate of analysis lands.

And anyone hoping a tea is a gentler way in than a sweet or an oil. It is a nicer ritual, which is a real reason to choose it, but gentleness and vagueness are not the same thing.