2025 is almost over. Shocking, as usual. Our year has flown for a few reasons. Soren and I moved to Denver, where we’ve had a wild year of hiking massive peaks, car camping during meteor showers, taking lots of leisurely bike rides, doing advocacy work at the CO capitol, and of course… trying every possible option to restock our tea despite a halt on exports of crushed leaf from Indonesia.
Burnt, Powdered, and Far, Far Away
We started our usual restocking process in March, when we projected that we had about three months’ worth of Unwind left in stock. Since then, we’ve sourced batches of leaf that were heat-treated to the point of being burnt, batches that were milled to almost powder, batches that were sold out from under us to another company while we were waiting for lab results to come in, batches from Thailand that—after completing sample testing—we were told couldn’t be shipped to us in the U.S…
Between March and November, we worked more than five potential suppliers and tested samples from nine batches of crushed leaf, but couldn’t find a batch that meets our quality standards or that is available to be shipped to us.
Luckily, things have been turning around this past month.
Better Updates (with Asterisks)
A lot more of you have been contacting us recently with questions (and understandable frustration). We’ve been sending out periodic emails to let you all know how things are going, but haven’t done many other forms of updating. That’s largely because we never thought the restock would take this long, and we didn’t expect to run out of almost every type of tea before we finished the next batches.
So here’s our new thought: regular updates that you can all follow, explaining where we’re at in the restock process and what our projected timeline is.*
*One big disclaimer: unforeseen issues are bound to happen and timelines are always somewhat unpredictable, especially around the holidays. Keeping that in mind, we’ll give you as much info as we can.
12/1/25
A new batch of leaf just arrived at Cambium Analytica for preliminary lab testing. Results should be back at the end of the week.
12/5/25
Preliminary lab results are back.
The results for each batch look great. Alkaloid levels are strong, and the batches passed testing for contaminants.
From looking at the lab results, it seems like one of the batches is a finer cut than crushed leaf. Finer cuts doesn’t work in tea bags, so before our supplier ships we just need to confirm that the batch is actually the right cut.
12/10/25
775 kg of crushed leaf officially en route to our manufacturer!
The batch that we were worried about was partially milled to a finer cut, and our supplier sent a sample of the finer material to the lab for testing. But there is still crushed leaf from that batch, and our supplier is shipping it to our manufacturing facility this afternoon.
12/17/25
All of the crushed leaf is at our manufacturing facility!
We’re properly blending it now so we can send out representative samples to the lab and ensure it meets all of our quality standards.
12/19/25
Crushed leaf arrived at the lab for comprehensive testing.
We took representative samples of each batch and submitted them back to Cambium Analytica for more comprehensive testing. Learn more about why we do comprehensive kratom testing here.
12/22/25
Comprehensive lab tests are in progress.
We submitted the samples as a rush order, which typically takes 3-5 business days, but it may take a few extra days because Cambium closed for Christmas at the end of this week.
Need help passing the time? Brew up some kratom jingle juice or festive kratom hot toddies for the holidays. (If we’re going to run out of tea, might as well do it with some flair, right?)
12/23/25
Prepping packaging.
A portion of the lab testing has been completed. Alkaloid levels take just a couple days; we’ll have to wait a little longer to get contaminant test results back.
In the meantime, since we have confirmation of alkaloid levels, we can get started on packaging! That way, we’ll be ready to send our packaging to the printer as soon as the rest of the lab results come back.
12/25/25
Merry Christmas!
Merry merry Christmas, everyone. We hope you’re in your pajamas with a stomach full of cinnamon rolls (and maybe some tea).
12/30/25
Submitted final packaging designs.
We finalized our packaging designs with alkaloid levels, quadruple-checked every pixel, and submitted the designs to our printer.
1/1/25
Happy New Year!
As you might imagine, 2025 was… not our favorite year. But we’re on the upswing as we cross into 2026. We hope you are, too.
Our printers are taking off today and tomorrow for the holiday. On Monday (Jan 5), they should be ready to roll again.
1/15/25
Packaging is being printed.
Our printers are now printing our designs, glueing boxes, and constructing pouches. Meanwhile, we’re crafting our tea bags, so once we receive our packaging from the printer, we’ll be ready to fill it.
1/20/25
Current Status: Packaging is finished!
Our printers finished creating our tea boxes and loose leaf pouches. We should receive them midway through next week.
Our production team has already blended our blends and prepped all of our batches so we’ll be ready to fill our boxes and pouches as soon as they arrive.
The Future
Restock estimate: Early / mid February
Production has started! The process of creating our tea blends and filling our packaging typically takes two to three weeks.
Once production is done, shipping to our warehouse in CO Springs takes 1-2 weeks, and then it takes a few days for us to be set up and ready to ship. We may take some preorders during that time.
So we estimate that we’ll have all of our teas back in stock some time in February. (We may make preorders available in the meantime—sign up for our emails in the footer if you’d like updates about that.)
Want to know a secret? Last year’s introduction of loose leaf tea was a smash success, so we’re hoping to make red, white, and green loose leaf teas this time around.
