Founded by Steve Smith, the brains behind Stash and Tazo, and his hand-picked team of teamakers, Smith Teamaker is located in an old brick building on the edge of Portland's Pearl District. Once a blacksmith shop, the building is now filled by a new generation of smiths who blend premium whole-leaf teas and rare herbal botanicals into carefully curated mini-batches. These blends are available in loose-leaf and in tea bags both online and in-store. The tea bags, or tea sachets in the Smith parlance, are beautifully transparent and biodegradable. Each box of tea sachets are given a unique batch number which can be looked up online at www.smithtea.com. There, customers can find information on the origin of each ingredient in each sachet, down to the finest detail. The tasting room at their headquarters in Oregon is a great place to sample everything Smith has to offer, from a hot pot of Lord Bergamot to an ice cold shot of their Big Hibiscus ready-to-drink tea.