Pesticides in tea

30 Replies
Brent said

Thanks for bumping the CA study. It’s encouraging. Also, though it isn’t specified, it might be safe to assume that most of the samples (for all products) came from prominent brands. My assumption is that the overall levels would be lower among lower-quantity producers, though I don’t know that. And, I don’t know if the trend would be declining if the study was narrowed to smaller producers (might be the opposite).

I wish this was better studied and monitored.

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I became concerned about the issue a while back and found a couple of the articles that were posted. I have since varied my tea selection, so that many are “organic” which I know doesn’t necessarily mean all that much (given the potential for pollutants from air, soil or irrigation water,) but is at least a little better off than the non-organic certified tea. It still concerns me the pesticides or other pollutants that could be in my teas. After all, tea is one of the few agricultural products that isn’t rinsed before it is prepared.

Aside from the company listed in the OP, has anyone come across tea companies that definitely meet the EU standards? I may have missed it, but didn’t see mention of other specifics.

Great looking avatar :)

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yyz said

The Metropolitan Tea Company, The Assam Tea Company, Jk tea shop, Teavivre ( both list if the teais EU standard in tea description), I would assume tea companies in the EU are some of the ones I know about.

Ah, excellent. Thank you. I’ll look into those. I actually just placed an order with Teavivre, but for non-Chinese/Taiwanese teas the others may be helpful.

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yyz said

Chinese Tea Distributor on Aliexpress
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/723612

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JC said

I have to agree with the pad in back. And with some of the comments regarding why this hasn’t been done prior or at least as a common practice, consumer pressure. Most of the time we don’t imagine people or companies selling thing that might harm us, so we assume they aren’t and never question it. Then when one person questions it, it become a bigger issue. I hope my favorites come up clean! lol

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yyz said

Just on the organic labeling issue. The US and EU organic labeling system are accepted as equivalent
http://www.qai-inc.com/newsroom/media_qa.asp as of 2010 ( I know a pretty old report now) only 0.8% of Organic products exceeded MRL in European testing so your Organic teas are probably pretty reliable. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/130312.htm

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LuckyMe said

Here is a list of tea companies I’ve found who sell either organic or pesticide-free teas:

Rishi (many certified organic teas, non-organic varieties are pesticide free)
Numi (certified organic)
Arbor Teas (certified organic)
Yuuki-Cha (organic)
O-Cha (some organic tea)
Yunnan Sourcing (pesticide free teas)
Dragon Tea House (some varieties of teas are organic. certified by OFDC China)
Tea from Taiwan (some organic/pesticide-free tea)
Art of Tea (some organic tea)

If anyone knows of any others, please do list them. Thanks.

AllanK said

Streetshop88 on EBay lists a number of teas as organic. That does not automatically mean pesticide free. Organic producers are still allowed to use certain, natural pesticides. Sometimes these natural pesticides are considered just as bad in my uderstanding.

Hi LuckyMe. A pleasure to e-meet you. Our little tea company is Ecocert Canada + USDA certified. Ecocert CAD certification is considered to have one of the highest certification standards worldwide. There aren’t “tiers” of organic unlike USDA, which has different levels of organic. Although all our teas are organic (which we don’t view as a luxury, more rather a standard) and also pesticide free, our main focus is quality & taste.

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