Given that this was a free sample, it's very good. The "flowery" is a bit like honeysuckle. But I won't buy it- I sort of have the feeling that Chinese teas may have lead or melimine in them, and I'd rather try out other teas first. The other free sample I got was a Darjeeling, and it tasted like dust, doing nothing to make me change my mind about my Darjeeling boycott. Toci
Free sample from where?
The problem is "China Black Flowery Orange Pekoe" doesn't really say very much about what the tea is or where it came from.
--scott
FOP is the grade of the tea. It doesnt denote anything about taste. Also China Black usually means a Keemun blend. Id worry more about the xCides and pollution than melamine. Save your money, buy Lipton or Brooke Bond Darjeeling.
Jim
PS I eat my share of Ch> Given that this was a free sample, it's very good. The "flowery" is a
I think you can exclude melamine as a worry. Melamine is used to raise scores on crudely done protein assays. Nobody scores teas for protein, and melamine does cost money.
Lead's another issue. Without reliable tests, I think the best you can do is to know where the tea you're drinking comes from and choose tea from areas remote from urban concentrations.
Boycott?
/Lew
Melamine tastes like flavorless plastic, and has ben used to make plates and cups. It wouldn't be a poison unless ground up, I believe. Lead tastes sweet, which is part of what makes it a danger in paint to children. Toci
That's a melamine polymer. What is winding up as contamination is the monomer, which in China (and much of the east) is used as a fertilizer to add nitrogen to the soil.
Actually, it's not toxic at all, according to the Merck Index. The problem is that fertilizer-grade melamine has a whole lot of other crap in it besides melamine.
Some lead compounds do, including the lead carbonate that is in paint, and lead acetate (sugar of lead). But most lead contamination today comes from sloppy industrial practices.
--scott
Do you have anything to cite for this use of melamine? Wikipedia's entry for melamine says
The use of melamine as fertilizer for crops had been envisaged during the '50s and '60s because of its high nitrogen content. However, the hydrolysis reactions of melamine leading to the nitrogen mineralisation in soils are very slow, precluding a broad use of melamine as fertilizing agent.
If Wikipedia's right, I kind of doubt that a corner-cutting tea farmer would spend money on melamine.
/Lew
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