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Tea from China Safe?

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  1. #1

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    Tea from China Safe?

    Hello, I love tea, and Chinese leaf teas comprise a large portion of that. One hears many things (especially in Hong Kong) about food safety concerns about foods imported from the Mainland. The mainland is known for its wonderful tea-growing regions, and I was curious if one should be careful when purchasing particular teas sourced from the Mainland or if there is nothing to worry about. I only ask because I drink alot of it.....


  2. #2

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    if there was really a big problem then most of HK people would be sick in hospital or dead. Tea is consumed a lot in HK, dont worry too much


  3. #3

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    There is no type of food or drink from China that is immune from adulteration/counterfeiting/contamination.

    Think about it . . . even if you are a Chinese tea farmer with the best intentions, you are still subject to the pollution in the air, water and soil from nearby sources. The tea will change hands many times from the farmer to your pot. Who knows what middlemen do . . . stretch with inferior tea, label as higher quality that it is . . . package last years tea as this years . . . etc.

    Let me clarify that I don't suggest you stop drinking tea or consuming all products from China.

    First of all it's nearly impossible - lots of ingredients in processed foods are from China and are not required to be labeled as such in the U.S. (i.e. China is the world's largest apple producer and provides a lot of apple juice that is the base ingredient or stretcher in many types of juices. You can't tell where that apple juice is from based on the label).

    Second, some raw ingredients seem to dominated by Chinese products (i.e. Pine nuts . . . damn near impossible to find non-Chinese pine nuts in the US!!).

    Last edited by huja; 09-12-2013 at 05:53 PM.
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  4. #4

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    Locals told me they fear Chinese tea that is contaminated with pesticides. Their solution to this is to throw away the first infusion or use it for washing the cups in Dimsum restaurants.

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  5. #5

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    Unfortunately contamination in food and beverage products is common these days whatever country it is produced in. Blame the the ethos of efficiency makes more money than effectivity, and unregulated cost saving and unethical profit margin widening. I still drink some teas from China but find the best tasting teas come from other Asian countries like Japan ( where recycling and hygiene plus ethical food and beverages production is well in force) and South Korea, also Sri Lanka Ceylon.yes, I drink a hell of a lot do tea from the black varieties to green to herbal/ fruit teas.

    Coffee is another topic.

    Last edited by Natfixit; 09-12-2013 at 07:24 PM.

  6. #6

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    If it's safe, it's not from China.


  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by wtbhotia:
    if there was really a big problem then most of HK people would be sick in hospital or dead. Tea is consumed a lot in HK, dont worry too much
    I buy alot of my tea directly in China, though, do you think this makes a difference, I don't get stopped at the border, but I'm not sure if HK has safety standards for teas imported and sold in HK shops?

  8. #8

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    Department Of Health is responsible for testing, consumer council also does testing. Here are results for search on Tea in Hong Kong

    http://www.consumer.org.hk/website/w...=0&Image33.y=0


  9. #9

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    I found this article on the Consumer Council site suggested
    Thanks!


    Test clears concerns over heavy metals and pesticide residues in tea

    Tea lovers can set their heart at ease.

    A Consumer Council test has given 75 samples of tea leaves and tea bags a clean bill of health to drink.

    By and large, according to the test, the tea we drink is safe from contamination of heavy metals and pesticides.

    The report reassures consumers who drink tea habitually,that the chances of their exceeding the safety level (stipulated in the Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake set by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives) of lead from tea consumption are slim.

    That is unless you happen to consume an incredibly huge quantity of tea - say 16 litres - every day and that the tea happens to contain the highest amount of leachable lead of 0.016 ppm as detected in some samples of the test (assuming that other food and drinks contain no lead).

    Besides lead, the test detected only low level of leachable arsenic, cadmium and aluminium in a few samples of tea, and mercury was not detected at all.

    But if you have the rare habit of chewing tea leaves as some do. The advice is that you should not eat too much.

    For the test showed that lead in comparatively higher quantity was detected in most samples of tea leaves and tea bags and arsenic was present in a quarter of the samples.

    In fact, 2 samples had a lead level above 6 ppm and 1 other sample had a total arsenic level (both organic and inorganic) above 1.4ppm. The matter has been referred to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department.

    The Department followed up the case and had found that their 3 samples gave satisfactory results. Moreover, the arsenic limit in the Food Adulteration (Metallic Contamination) Regulations refers only to the amount of inorganic arsenic As2O3, and therefore the sample found to contain a total amount of 1.6 ppm of arsenic might not necessarily exceed the limit.

    Only a small amount of pesticide residues of DDT and Dicofol was found in some of the samples. But none exceeded the safety limit set out in the Chinese Tea Hygiene Standard GB 9679, EU and Codex standards.


  10. #10

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    The two riskiest teas coming out of China are greens (longjing) and pu erh from small factories. The longjing needs to look pristine, so it is often heavily sprayed to keep the bugs off. The pu erh from small factories can contain a lot of crap, including string, bones, cigarette butts, etc, since it is dried outdoors. I was shown pictures of dogs walking across piles of drying pu erh in Yunnan! Cakes from larger factories such as Dayi tend to be free of extraneous materials.

    Last edited by jayinhongkong; 10-12-2013 at 02:11 PM.
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