Menghai Dayi Taetea Shou: Pesticide Residues?
On their website:
http://www.taetea.net/en/ota
they detail their OTA Quality Guarantee. They appear to take great care and pride in the quality of their puerh. After reading all three webpages on this topic, I didn’t see any dicussion about pesticide residues.
Please also see: http://www.taetea.net/en/factory/our_tea_farmers
Has anyone found credible information on this topic?
Thanks!
Generally, it’s not a tradition for Chinese tea company to show their test reports on their website because no one cares. What they usually list is QS or QC certification. I searched their Tmall store which only lists QS number. You can try to contact them and ask for a specific test report and see if they will reply.
Another thing about pesticide on Puerh tea is, it’s not common to do it on Yun Nan large-leaf tea trees. The farmer I get my products from just told me very clearly, no need to worry about that because they don’t use it at all. BUT, Tai Di Cha has the problem of the pesticide residues.
Thanks for your reply. It’s not accurate to say that no one cares. Here are just three examples:
https://www.arborteas.com/why-arbor-teas/
https://www.rishi-tea.com/aboutus
https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/eu-mrl-compliance-and-yunnan-sourcing-brand-pu-erh-teas
Thanks also for mentioning QS or QC certification. What are the significance of these certifications? How do they compare to USDA Organic and EUROFINS MRL?
Thanks again!
I said no one cares means in the Chinese market actually no one cares. That’s why it’s hard to find these information online. People just need to know if the brand has a good reputation. No one really cares about if the tea is organic or not in China.
QS and QC are pretty much just the certifications that this factory is qualified to manufacture products or this product is not ‘bad’ quality.
This thread reminds me of the makers of Fuzhuan who get the spores into their tea by means of flour, but will never bother to tell you if it is rice flour and such gluten free or wheat flour and not gluten free. Scott tried to check for me a while back and I don’t think he was even able to get an answer. The people of China don’t care which flour is used to make the spores in their Fuzhuan.
Essence of Tea tests as well. I think there will be a lot added to this list as more companies are asked about it by the consumers. I know that YS was one of the first to test.
Their approach to tea selection sounds promising:
https://www.essenceoftea.com/who-are-we
Here’s another example:
http://www.teavivre.com/about-teavivre/
I’ll see if I can find the link/article, but the Chinese testing does not include glyphosate becuase you have to specifically request it, and most people don’t. so those test results that say “we test for X amount of pesticides” isn’t thorough, although it is somewhat reassuring for the pesticides that were tested. Makes you wonder what other specific pesticides are excluded, and perhaps why?
This sounds similar to the fact that the Chinese definition of organic is in my understanding not as strict as the US or European or Japanese definitions.
yeeaaaa…I don’t really trust any sort of certifications or claims of authenticity coming from china, just the independently tested/certified stuff
That’s very prudent especially if there’s a family history of cancer.
Here’s another example of USDA Organic:
https://littleredcuptea.com/pages/our-company
I’ve always wondered how some of the Dayi teas would come out if they were tested. Anyone know how much it would cost, and how one might go about testing?
Definitely an interesting thought. Scott Wilson at YS may be a good resource for this topic. These links may also be of interest: https://www.eurofinsus.com/food-testing/testing-services/contaminant-testing/pesticide-residue-testing/
https://www.eurofinsus.com/food-testing/industries/tea-and-coffee-testing/
Unfortunately I feel like it’s usually a gamble (skewed towards the losing side) if you’re drinking 90’s or older puer. I’ve even messaged someone on here asking if they had David Hoffman-like taste buds capable of detecting pesticides for a specific shou that I have doubts about (yet is still very good).
I do think finding pesticide free tea is much easier and reliable if it’s a recent production.
I wish it was possible to taste test for pesticides but no. It is possible to buy pesticide testing kits though although I don’t know how expensive they are or if they test for all pesticides. Puerhshop is frequently mentioning it in their item description that they tested a tea for pesticides.
According to Essence of Tea you can taste chemicals:
https://www.essenceoftea.com/tea/puerh-tea/tasting-for-chemicals-a-guide.html
Except Essence of Tea only makes assertions that you can taste and smell pesticides. Neither they, nor as far as I know anyone else, have done a proper double-blind test, which means they know shit. Drinking tea with and without residue and then claiming to be able to spot the difference means nothing.
Also, they claim to be able to taste residue on tea that is “well below” the EU limits. Lol. I could maybe – maybe – accept that you can taste excessive spraying but the EU MRL is the most stringent standard in the world – so stringent that if a neighboring farmer spray and some drifts to your field you can fail the test – so I am going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one.
They were selling a pesticide tasting kit for a while there, I have never heard from anyone who bought it and determined if he could indeed taste the chemicals.
Yeah a pesticide kit is all good and well if someone actually used it to do a proper blind test. Then it would be interesting. Can’t really be the vendor though, since they have a vested interest.
I wanted to test for glyphosate, which isn’t commonly tested for despite being a commonly used pesticide in the past (pre-90’s). My friend sent me this article about the pesticide after I described a strong tingling mouth energy that a tea gave me. It’s a good read for puer-heads: http://horsesmouth.puerist.co/roundup/
If you can speak Chinese, you could just go on Taobao and ask them to send test results for whatever particular cake(s) you’re looking at. I’ve had more than one company be totally willing to do that, so long as they have actually tested them. Some may not test, but my guess is Dayi has them tested regularly, since there are national pesticide residue standards in China.
Unfortunately, I don’t speak Chinese.
Are the Chinese national pesticide residue standards as strict as the EUROFINS Maximum Residue Limit (MRL)?
Haha, no way are the Chinese standards as strict as EUMRL standards. I laughed out loud at the thought.
Does anyone know what the Chinese standard for pesticides is? And does anyone know what standard Dayi claims to keep up with? I don’t imagine a factory tea like Dayi would keep up with one of the more stringent standards as American and European business are only sidelines for them.
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