I’ve long been a fan of Honest Tea. It’s flavorful with a light sweetness, it’s organic, and the company that makes it is socially and environmentally responsible.

Co-founder and TeaEO Seth Goldman brewed the first batches of it in his Bethesda home in 1998. Now with offices in downtown Bethesda, the company makes 37 flavors of bottled drinks, plus tea bags. When I was there in late October, boxes arrived bearing the first bottles of fizzy goodness from the newest line, Honest Kombucha, which is now available at Whole Foods in the mid-Atlantic region.

Plenty of people share my devotion. Last year, sales reached $38 million, and The Coca-Cola Company purchased 40 percent of Honest Tea.

I met Seth recently when Bethesda Green, a nonprofit he co-founded, launched its new Education Center and Green Business Incubator. Here, he shares with We Love DC readers some thoughts on DC, green, and tea.

Donna: How long have you lived in the DC area?

Seth: My wife and I moved to Arlington in 1990, and I worked on Capitol Hill for two and a half years. I went away to graduate school for two years. Then we came back to Bethesda in 1995.

What do you like most about DC?

There’s a lot of openness around community. I’m from Boston originally. It feels like DC doesn’t have the same kind of ethnic neighborhoods, but you don’t have the feeling of being closed off. In DC, whether you’ve been here for a year, or five years, or 10 years, it feels very easy to connect to the community.
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