HM Exclusive: How Mad Tea is bringing sustainable beverages to hotels | Hotel Management

Canadian biotech company Genecis Bioindustries has expanded beyond upcycling waste into bioplastics to launch its first consumer-focused brand in the food and beverage industry. As the company looks to bring its Mad Tea line of composable tea pods into residential kitchens, its leaders are also partnering with hotels for in-room amenities.

Mad Tea pods are made from polyhydroxyalkanoates-based bioplastics and are compatible with Nespresso machines. All Mad Tea pods are vegan and lactose-free and the available flavors range from traditional morning drinks to caffeine-free afternoon options—a deliberate decision, according to Genecis CEO Luna Yu.

“We came across this idea while we were at the office and [realized] that we all really love to have these teas in the afternoons and evenings, [but] there was no way to really make them very easily outside of buying them from a café or whisking our own matcha,” she recalled. Seeing a white space in the industry, Yu and her team began developing a product that would both meet the company's sustainability standards and work with existing technology. “And we thought that it had to really taste good,” she added.

In developing their pods, the team opted to make them fit machines rather than using traditional tea bags. This was another deliberate decision, Yu said, estimating that between 70 to 80 percent of tea bags in North America have plastics in them. “When you add hot water to plastics, you actually create a lot more nanoplastics and microplastics,” she explained, citing a 2019 study that found as many as 11 billion microplastics in a single cup of traditionally brewed tea. “They're super small, so they get into the human cells,” she added. “We wanted to have something that was more non-toxic with our tea pods.”

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, an estimated 10 million metric tons of plastic waste and microplastics enter the oceans each year, and researchers project that the total amount of plastic waste circulating the world's oceans will be 150 million tons by 2025. Data also suggests that the average person can eat, drink or breathe between 78,000 and 211,000 microplastic particles every year, which has the potential to increase the likelihood of heart attack, stroke or death.

The tea pods are made from Genecis’ proprietary strain of bacteria that creates bioplastics, including PHA, which the company says are “natural and non-toxic” to people and wildlife. The bioplastics can be broken down without leaving microplastics behind.

As for why the team selected Nespresso as their machine brand of choice? “We really love the aroma as well as the intensity that came out of the Nespresso machine,” Yu said. “It's got a highly pressurized system—19 bars of pressure. We knew that it was probably going to be the only machine out there that can really have that high pressurized system that you really want for that high, really intense taste.”

Looking ahead, Yu expects that with better formulation, the pods can be designed to work on other types of machines, or even traditional tea bags.

Mad Teas will be available in a number of hotels as an in-room amenity at W Hotels in New York City (Union Square) and Los Angeles (Hollywood and West Beverly Hills), as well as the Palisociety hotel group’s properties in Los Angeles. The brand will also be featured in some Arlo hotels.

And while providing tea and coffee in hotel guestrooms is nothing new, Yu believes that Mad Tea’s pods can go even further as an amenity when partnered with drinks from the minibar. “A couple of our flavors pair really, really well with alcohol,” she said, highlighting peach oolong and chamomile lavender as good mixers.