You won’t find that powder in our teas anymore. We learned that hotter and drier summers—and perhaps other changes in our climate—are shrinking the viable range for huckleberries. Efforts to grow them commercially have failed. Every year, pickers find it more difficult to bring in the purple berries loved by humans and bears alike. We considered our options, and then we tried a blind taste test. Fortunately, the huckleberry powder contributed negligibly to the overall flavor of our teas.

So, we decided to stop using huckleberries.

First of all, bears in the Pacific Northwest rely on huckleberries as a food source. We don’t need to compete with the bears (whose habitable range, like the berries’, continues to shrink). In addition, as huckleberries increase in scarcity—and in price!—we didn’t want to pass that cost on to you, the person who enjoys our tea and supports our business.

Lastly, and most to the point, LMTC wants to build a sustainable tea trade. We don’t want to stress finite resources. As with facing huckleberry scarcity, we also decided to lower the amount of chaga (a health-boosting mushroom found on trees in northern climates) in our tea blends, such as Cloud 9 Montana and Mushies’ Instant Cup™. Chaga’s popularity has grown in recent years, which, like many botanicals before, may lead to overharvesting and even extinction.

We take our sourcing and consumption seriously. Lake Missoula chooses to work with tea farms that care about environmental and social stewardship. We don’t get everything right the first time, but we keep asking questions. And—surprise, surprise—the more we learn, the more complex the world appears.

Remember the big picture, next time you’re out picking huckleberries or mushrooms. Leave some for the wildlife: they need it more than we do!

By Heather Kreilick