Group Apology

I would like to apologize to the group for my high signal to noise ratio lately (IE Tea to BS ratio). I will cease and desist immediately.

Now back to the matters at hand: How many insect parts are allowed in a Bingcha, or conversely, how many tea leaves are allowed in a sample of Poo Poo Puerh? Does anyone know if China has a similar document establishing standards?

Mike Petro snipped-for-privacy@pu-erh.net

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Reply to
Mike Petro
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It's funny how the government rates the acceptability of foreign matter in food substances, and we often have such standards as "0.3 mg of rat balls per pound of oolong".

-- Eschew obfuscation!

Reply to
Loiskelly1

I have been on the sharp end of making tea for many years, and despite tea being traditionally manufactured as an "agricultural product" I have always taught that it should be produced as a food product: clean and free of defects -and made to the standard expected. Food being totally free of defects is of course an impossible dream, hence the USDA listing

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of allowable defects for foodstuffs (Food Defect Action Levels) mentioned in an adjoining thread last week

While this list makes gruesome reading for those fond of canned salmon, dried peas, or coffee beans (but without the allowable molds, maggots and rodent hairs) the USDA list does not specifically mention tea (Camellia sinensis). Neither could I find, in my library of tea data, any defect contamination limits for tea - though I do have a small collection of examples of extraneous matter removed from commercial teas* - no official advice was found as to the "acceptable" levels of these defects.

So I posed the question to the USDA and they answered somewhat circuitously:

"Dear Sir,

No defect action levels have been established for defects in teas. General requirements apply however: foods, including teas, must be clean and free of deleterious substances. The fact that a defect action level for a certain food and a particular defect has not been established does not mean that the food is exempt from these general requirements.

Industry Outreach Team 023 Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Food and Drug Administration"

It would indeed be interesting to know if the Chinese have better defined standards than the USA for contamination of tea.

Nigel at Teacraft

  • As percentage of defects seen: stones and grit 27%, textile thread
20%, human hair (>5cm ong) 13%, seeds 13%, metal pieces 13%, bamboo pieces 7%, insect parts 7%
Reply to
Nigel at Teacraft

Is there any standard for purity in tea?

Reply to
Frayed

Hey, it's an election year, I grade student essays, and I have three kids. More signal less noise is okay with me.

My distinguished colleague and insectobibulant wm recently sent me the e-mail

It didn't keep me from drinking his pue erh (in which any beetles, were they present, had specific gravity greater than one) or, apparently, him either.

And I wouldn't set great store on Chinese government standards. A common phrase with respect to any limit on commerce is "Is your stomach too full?". Why communist governments should nearly universally ignore the health of their people and their environment is beyond me. Of course, a prominent country with a market-driven economy appears intent on disemboweling its FDA and EPA as well (for purposes of argument, I am speaking of Andorra).

I have bought organic Chinese tea from Upton's. I have wondered whether it has any fewer residues than nonorganic.

Rick.

Reply to
Rick Chappell

Its a moot point akin to the numbering of pin head dancing angels - is the presence of insects in tea to be welcomed as indicative of a high level of organic husbandry? (if pesticides had been used the leaves would be free of insects) or of petrochemical based chemical husbandry? (something pretty nasty must have killed off those bugs on the leaf).

Trouble is that insects get in all through the process, not just during field growth. They arrive at the factory on green leaf, they drop off lights onto fermenting leaf, and they enter stored tea. Realistically all the insects that enter the process prior to drying have at least been heat sterilised. Arrival thereafter poses more of a microbial hazard to the tea consumer.

But that's insects (and insect parts). "Residues" are a different case and are very tightly controlled under any decent organic certification scheme. Residues are classified into herbicide and pesticide residues (broadly any chemical nasticide whose presence is monitored and whose allowable levels are tightly regulated by most countries' authorities, notwithstanding whether the tea or food is certified as organic or not) and heavy metal contamination - lead, mercury, cadmium, etc. (much less well regulated in tea, with most official bodies publishing nothing specific for tea, only general levels for some foodstuffs).

Rest assured, however; your organic tea will be virtually pesticide and heavy metal free, as will its occasional insect guests.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel at Teacraft

None that I know of.

Various governments have various quality standards, mostly based on the International Organisation for Standardisation specification ISO

3720 (Black tea definition and basic requirements).

ISO 3720 relates mainly to chemical and physical analysis of tea, but its minimum standards are so low that at least 90% of the world's production easily fits within it. A standard for tea purity per se does not exist.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel at Teacraft

Umm...reading the introduction makes the point clear that these amounts are not considered to be the acceptable levels. These are the absolute limits, above which action will be taken. In addition inspectors are not bound by these amounts. Any condition they see as deleterious can be a reason for action.

I guess these standards are published so the legal system has something to chew on during its deliberations on any case involving these issues....more than anything else. If I were a producer, my goal would be Zero defects. Even though practically unattainable, the product would be the better for the effort. .

We can never expect commercial production to rise to the same quality/purity as we do the small, manual operations. This is, after all, the reasoning behind the search for the most excellent producers. In this world there is Good, Fast and Cheap and you can really only have two of those at a time.

Reply to
L R L

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