Julia Mader brings a variety of sustainable and environmentally-friendly chai tea to the Pacific Northwest.

Her company, Evergreen Chai, is dedicates itself to creating and selling chai tea she started making recipes for while living in Austin, Texas.

Mader moved to Sequim last June to expand her product to Pacific Northwest markets.

What separates her business from many other tea companies, she said, is her determination to make sustainable and eco-friendly products from tea blends to packaging.

“I was interested in local, ethical food production and realized how important responsible sources of food was,” Mader said.

Mader took a class about ethical food production while in college that sparked the idea of creating her own sustainable chai tea business.

Fast forward several years later, and she is gradually getting her products to coffee shops and business from Port Angeles to Seattle.

“I wanted to create an ecologically-minded, product-giving (businesses) an easy product that enabled them be environmental stewards,” Mader said.

Evergreen chai sells three botanically-inspired chai tea blends: a golden chai that is caffeine free, a creamy matcha chai and a masala chai.

She also sells two micro brewed drinks, a sweet fennel chai and a spicy ginger chai. All her products are vegan, non-GMO, 100 percent certified-organic and sustainable.

Her tea blend packaging also is compostable.

“I want to help coffee shops waste less and to help their environmental impact be lower,” Mader said.

“I thought I could do an interesting take on the traditional chai tea blends.”

While she mainly specializes in wholesale, Mader also sells her three chai tea blends at her online website and store. Her golden chai and creamy matcha chai tea blends will be available on Hurricane Coffee’s menu in September at 104 W. Washington St., and her spicy ginger chai drink can be bought at The Sweet Beginning cafe in Olympic Medical Center’s Medical Service Building at 840 N. Fifth Ave.

Her products also can be found at The Blackbird Coffeehouse in Port Angeles, Sunrise Coffee Company in Port Townsend, at Port Townsend’s Thuja (starting in September), as well as The Wick and the Urban Coffee Lounge in Seattle.

Mader also has been taking her products to coffee and tea festivals across the West Coast. Evergreen Chai will be at Coffee Fest in Los Angeles at the end of August, and the Northwest Tea Festival in Seattle on Sept. 29 and 30.

Now she has her commercial kitchen license, Mader said she will share the kitchen space with Goodness Tea in Sequim giving her more space to package her tea blends.

To learn more about Evergreen Chai or to buy products online, visit www. evergreenchai.com. Contact Julia Mader at hello@evergreenchai.com.

Julia Mader creates a chai tea latte using her golden chai blend that is caffeine free. All her tea products are vegan, 100 percent certified organic, non-GMO and her packaging is compostable. She hopes to help local coffee shops and businesses reduce their waste. Sequim Gazette photo by Erin Hawkins