"Small batch" is one of those phrases that has been used enough to mean almost nothing. It's on gin, on biscuits, on soap made in a factory the size of an aircraft hangar. So it's worth being specific about what we mean.
What it means here
Every blend is mixed by hand, in quantities small enough that one person can lift the bowl. No industrial mixer. No production run measured in pallets.
It gets tested on a kitchen table before it goes anywhere near a pouch.
Why not just make more at once
Three reasons, and none of them are romantic.
Herbs are not consistent. This is the real one. A batch of chamomile from one harvest is not the same as the next — different weather, different soil, different drying. It'll be sweeter or hayier, paler or greener. Blending in small quantities means we can taste what's actually in front of us and adjust, rather than following a recipe written for a crop that no longer exists.
Large-scale production solves this problem by flattening it: blend enough material together and the variation averages out into something reliable and slightly characterless. That's a legitimate choice. It isn't ours.
Volume is the enemy of aroma. Herbs start losing their volatile oils the moment they're processed. The aromatic compounds — the reason lavender smells like lavender — are, by definition, volatile. A pouch blended in March and sold in November has spent eight months quietly becoming less itself. Small batches mean less time between the bowl and your kettle.
Delicate material breaks. Whole flowers, blue lotus, rose petals — put them through industrial equipment and they arrive as dust. Dust extracts fast, tastes flat, and looks like the bottom of the bag. Hands are gentler than machines.
What you get, and what you give up
What you get: a cup that tastes of the specific plants that went into it, blended close to when you're drinking it.
What you give up: perfect uniformity. Your Tummy Tea this month may be a shade more floral than last month, because the rose was. The colour of InnerGlow shifts with the hibiscus harvest. We think that's the point — but if you're expecting something identical every time, we'd rather say so now than have it be a surprise.
The honest limitation
Small batches sell out. We'd rather that than blend more than we can blend well, or hold stock long enough that it goes tired on a shelf.
If something's gone, leave your email on the product page and we'll tell you the moment it's back. It's usually not long — that's rather the point.
