All I want is plain, ordinary green tea like we drank in the Tokyo office. Finally, I found a site, Canadian flag in the left upper corner, with basic green tea, not matcha, no flower petals added. I’m not linking because that flag is, erm, inaccurate. Looking further, the phone numbers are all in Colorado. Sure enough, an American wellness company, not Canadian.
Just flying the right flag is not enough. We need to be alert good old American misinformation, often hidden in an obscure corner.
Anyone know a Canadian source of run of the mill, not too bitter loose leaf green tea, Japanese rather than Chinese? There’s quite a difference between the two.
I’m equally upset at Canadian companies selling items that are not made in Canada, under a guise that it’s “all Canadian”.
Example: I want a folding coffee table. Found a Canadian company in Windsor, Ontario. Looks legit… Looking closer, the tables are made in Poland…
There DO exist companies that are through and through Canadian… too many are masking it though. It’s understandable for some things but it’s nuts for stuff like furniture, like above (QC has a lovely woodworking furniture industry)
A big problem is cost. For many of us, Canadian products mostly cost too much. Because they are smaller, and often local/niche, the manufacturers do not gain the economies of scale that the large US/multinational companies do. One of the depressing things about this experience for me has been Canadians scolding Canadians who, due to their low income, cannot buy most of the Canadian products that pop up in discussion here, on reddit, on Facebook. Sure, company X makes great real wool sweaters in Nova Scotia, but if those sweaters cost $C175 each, you can bet my immigrant, young, old, and/or working class friends won’t be buying them, any more than they will be buying that vegan Canadian toothpaste that costs twice as much per ounce as the mass manufactured US ones.
Perhaps with time, some of these companies will grow enough to be able to offer lower prices, but until they do, me, Shelina, Dilpreet, Édouard, Rosie et alia will be buying our furniture at that non-American mass manufacturer, IKEA. And we’d like to remind everyone that Dollarama has a lot of house products – alas, not toothpaste – made here in Canada, that are effective and affordable for working people.