Our Sourcing Standards
Transparency over marketing. Here's exactly where our ingredients come from.
Why Sourcing Matters for Chai
Many people search for chai made with heavy metal tested spices, especially due to concerns about lead in cinnamon and other commonly used spices. These concerns are valid—some chai blends are made from bulk spice sources with limited transparency. And there is no federal limit for lead in cinnamon or any other spice, so it is up to each brand to know and test its spices (what the FDA does and doesn't set).
At Meria, our approach to clean chai starts with sourcing transparency. We believe you deserve to know exactly where your ingredients come from and how they're tested.
Our Approach
Single-Source Spice Supplier: Red Ape Cinnamon
Our cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, clove, and nutmeg come from Red Ape Cinnamon. We chose them because they publish heavy-metal test results for their cinnamon, clove, ginger and nutmeg by lot number, each on its own page.
Batch Testing Documentation
You can browse Red Ape's per-lot test results yourself at redapecinnamon.com/heavy-metal-testing-results. If you'd like the specific Certificate of Analysis for the batch in your bag, email hello@meriachai.com with your order number and we'll send it.
Separate Sourcing for Tea & Pepper
Black tea and black pepper are sourced separately to ensure quality and consistency. We source organic ingredients; the finished product is not certified organic.
Lab results for the spices we're using now
These are the lots from our latest Red Ape orders: ginger, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom from October 12, 2026, and cassia cinnamon from July 29, 2025. Each lot number comes off our invoice and links to Red Ape's own lab report. Results are in parts per million (ppm); 1 ppm is 1 mcg of a metal in each gram of spice.
Cardamom
Lot 003502
Red Ape doesn't publish cardamom results.
| Spice and lot | Lab and date | Lead | Arsenic | Cadmium | Mercury |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cassia cinnamon Lot 25001411 | Eurofins, Mar 13, 2025 | 0.07 | < 0.10 | 0.17 | < 0.005 |
| Ginger Lot 11FA1190226 | Genista, Jul 17, 2026 | 0.18 | 0.06 | 0.05 | < 0.01 |
| Cloves Lot 713107241 | Genista, Nov 24, 2024 | 0.267 | 0.024 | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Nutmeg Lot 1082478-2410 | Genista, Sep 13, 2024 | 0.0574 | 0.002 | 0.020 | 0.003 |
| Cardamom Lot 003502 | Red Ape doesn't publish cardamom results. | ||||
- Every published lot above is under 1 ppm of lead, New York's recall threshold for spices. There is no federal limit; here's what that means.
- Red Ape's own lead limit of 0.1 ppm is for its cassia cinnamon. Our ginger and cloves test higher than our cinnamon does, so we show every number rather than only the best one.
- Our invoice prints the nutmeg lot as "10824"; Red Ape's matching report is lot 1082478-2410. Cloves have a second report for the same lot from Eurofins (lead 0.23 ppm, August 2024).
Updated October 23, 2026.
Limits of Testing
We believe in being transparent about what we do and don't do:
- •Testing is conducted by our supplier, not in-house
- •Supplier testing ≠ zero risk (no food product can claim that)
- •We share what we know
What We Don't Do
No In-House Testing
We rely on our supplier's testing and are transparent about this
No Bulk Sourcing
We prioritize supplier relationships over lowest-cost sourcing
No "Natural Flavors"
We don't use additives to mask ingredient quality
Taste the Difference
Clean chai made with transparency. Seven organic ingredients, zero sugar, zero fillers.