Sourcing Story: Mauritius Tea

At fresh, we’re known for traveling to the end of the earths to transform natural ingredients into extraordinary skincare. We are committed to sourcing the finest ingredients from around the world with respect for biodiversity to bring them to your skin. One of the best examples is our potent tea sourced from Mauritius, a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Spotlight on Mauritius

This tea plant was introduced to Mauritius’ adverse growing conditions—volcanic soil, tropical climate, and low altitude— over a century ago and adapted its genetic expression to grow. How? It produces adaptive phytocompounds that are proven to be 2.65x more concentrated than ordinary tea.* After discovering this, our fresh scientists were taken by the idea that this tea plant thrives under extreme conditions. So we traveled to the famed Bois Chéri Tea Farm on Mauritius, the first and largest tea farm on the island, to source our special ingredient. Thanks to today’s advanced technologies we’re able to extract this tea plant’s resilient power and apply it to skincare.

Sourcing with respect

As a member of the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT), fresh is on a journey to advance sourcing practices that help people and biodiversity thrive. Since 2020, we’ve worked with UEBT to improve the way we select and source our ingredients. This involves on-site assessments of local suppliers and cultivation or wild collection sites with verifications against the UEBT standard. The verification process is based on UEBT’s 7 principles, with the aim of showing progress toward sourcing with respect for people and biodiversity.

Bois Chéri Tea Farm was assessed by UEBT in October 2021 during the harvest season. The UEBT assessor utilized the full field checklist of more than 100 criteria to perform the assessment on tea leaves dried on site. Based on the findings of this assessment, we are currently working with Bois Chéri and UEBT to implement improvement plans.

Our partnership with UEBT is a crucial part of our sustainability commitment, focused on protecting biodiversity. As a brand, we are committed to caring for the skin of the earth just as we do our own—today, tomorrow, and always.

*compared to ordinary tea using the same extraction process