Protective, secure, durable, stackable, and cost-effective. These are all top concerns when making decisions on packaging solutions. Tea tins check all these boxes, making them a great format to store and protect your tea products.
Tea tins deliver a premium user experience and don’t have the same disposable feel as other packaging options. Some people even collect vintage ones for their visual appeal.
So what exactly are we looking for when considering tea tin packaging for your brand? Let’s dive in to see what makes this packaging type unique.
What Is Tea Tin Packaging?
Most commonly made of tin-plated steel, tea tins are an opaque and airtight packaging option used to package all kinds of tea products.
Although this format has been around for some time, it has come back into style as consumers seek packaging with a luxury, vintage, and high-quality feel.
This type of packaging is generally made up of two parts, a lid and the container itself. Slip lids, twist-off lids, and latch lids are a few of the most common ways to top these containers.
Tea tins are often cylindrical, offering customers a stand-up solution for their favorite loose-leaf products and convenient tea bags. Some tins are rectangular, others square. Many tea tins also feature custom shapes and dimensions to enhance shelf appeal and give a unique branding angle with more reusability.
No matter how you cut it (or shape it), tea tin packaging can simply be made from any metallic alloy and contain tea with assurance and style.
What Are the Benefits of Tea Tin Packaging?
Besides the obvious visual appeal of tea tins and their sturdy construction, you may wonder what makes tea tins a worthy packaging opinion.
Here are just a few of their significant benefits:
1. Promotes Longevity
Like any other food product, freshness is a top concern regarding tea. Packaging for tea must be built to withstand the elements to keep the contents at peak quality. This includes the supply chain journey, storage, retail shelving, and the at-home user experience. Longevity is a complex equation with tea, and tins address all the key factors.
One of the most significant parts of enjoying tea is experiencing the aroma when sipping on a hot cup. Like spices, coffee, and other dried goods, prolonged exposure to air can oxidize tea products, dulling the tea’s flavor, aroma, and color.
The airtight seal on a tea tin reduces air exposure to maintain freshness for extended periods, reducing the chance of brewing a cup with a stale, flat taste and aroma.
Teas are also sensitive to the smells of products around them. In a pantry full of spices and other foods, improperly stored teas can absorb the scents of these other products. This can lead to flavor and aroma contamination causing the tea to lose its distinct flavors and fragrances.
In addition to this, tea tins are typically moisture-resistant and almost always opaque. This means light and UV rays cannot penetrate the exterior and add another layer of assurance to quality preservation.
These barrier properties reduce the growth of bacteria and the chance of molding, significantly increasing shelf life.
2. Easy Organization
Whether you are a casual or diehard tea drinker, you’ll want to keep things organized in the tea department. Tea tins are ideal for keeping track of your favorite teas and avoiding issues like waste or loss. Besides, no one wants an avalanche when they open a cabinet full of miscellaneous tea boxes, loose-leaf teas, and bagged teas.
Tea tins can be easily stored, stacked, and organized on the countertop, pantry, or cabinets. They also have ample space for labeling, making identifying the tea you’re looking for a quick process.
The simple storage of tea tins is also great for logistics partners and retailers. They are the ones responsible for safely shipping and storing tea for consumer access, and durable, well-organized product units help make the process easier for them all.
3. A Sustainable Option
For today’s brands and consumers, one thing is for sure, sustainability matters. Besides the durability benefits of their steel construction, tea tins are easily recyclable, unlike other packaging formats that typically end up in the trash.
Some tea shops even offer discounts to their customers for bringing their own tea tins — an incentive for delaying a trip to the landfill.
Tea tins can also be easily upcycled or reused for other purposes. A quick search yields all sorts of creative ways people repurpose their tins — as herb planters, jewelry boxes, stationery holders, and piggy banks, to name just a few.
Tea drinkers are a high-conscious group who tend to take environmental issues more seriously. Brands that appeal to this contingent with eco-friendly packaging and ethical sourcing will benefit from greater support and a trusted reputation.
These small investments can pay off big in a tea market where people pay attention.
What Can You Use Tea Tin Packaging For?
Tea tin packaging is a great packaging solution for tea products of all types — from black to green, oolong to rooibos, pu-erh to yerba mate, and loose-leaf to bagged teas; the options are endless.
Even powdered tea products like matcha are found in these tins. But tea tins can also be helpful for other product types.
Topicals, including lip balms, salves, chest rubs, and moisturizing creams, are now commonly sold in tea tins. These formats tend to feature more shallow dimensions and allow for easy access on the go.
Tea tins have also been adopted within the cannabis industry for several product types. Tea tins were designed to keep the beautiful fragrance of teas in. This odor-proof barrier is ideal for retaining the terpenes, or aroma compounds, of cannabis flower.
Just as some candies, mints, and cough drops are sold in tea tins, THC and CBD edibles of every type can now be packaged this way.
Why Is Child Resistance Crucial in Tea Tin Packaging?
None among us is too concerned about our children getting into the tea and getting over-caffeinated, but tea tin packaging is no longer just for tea products.
Tea tins’ moisture, odor, light, air resistance, and durability have made them useful in other industries. If a product could be dangerous if mishandled or ingested by a child, proper child-resistant closures are necessary for compliance and peace of mind.
Child-resistant seals also ensure that products remain free of contamination or exposure to unwanted toxins, which can be an issue in the tea industry. Purity and quality are the top concerns for tea connoisseurs worldwide, and child-resistant packaging offers that extra assurance, even if the products are not considered hazardous.
The World’s First Recyclable Child-Resistant Tin
Dymapak’s Securitin takes the appeal of a tea tin and elevates it to the next level. The Securitin is the world’s first lab-certified child-resistant tin, making it ideal for storing dangerous or toxic items.
Constructed of 100% steel and containing no plastics, the Securitin also has an integrated locking mechanism that makes it curbside recyclable. It is highly durable, making it an ideal option for many product types beyond tea, while also a great candidate for upcycling and repurposing.
The Securitin can be fully customized to make your products jump off the shelf. From a wide range of colors, finishes, and exterior and interior printing, Dymapak can help you turn your product from just another face in the crowd to a knockout.
Tea doesn’t need to be packaged in tins, of course. Dymapak also offers child-resistant flexible packaging, including bags and pouches that tea drinkers have grown to love. While these formats may lack tin’s rigid exterior resistance barrier, the other protections are solid, and branding elements shine on their glossy surfaces.
The Bottom Line
It’s not by mere chance that tea tins have been used for so long to package tea products of all types. They have distinctive shelf appeal, and their strong barrier keeps everything we don’t want out while keeping in all the aroma, flavor, and color we want in our tea experience.
When making packaging decisions for your new tea products, don’t sleep on this great option — they can help keep your product at its best for longer. Turn to Dymapak, and let’s put your tea on the top shelf with winning packaging solutions.
Sources:
Eco-Friendly Tea Packaging Is on the Rise Around the World, Per New Research | World Tea News
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