Pesticides: Hidden Ingredients in Chinese Tea
Greenpeace 2012
Tea drinking is one of China’s most cherished customs; and tea a symbol of Chinese culture. Today, China is the world’s biggest tea producer, with 20 tea-producing provinces and eight million tea growers. And the area of tea plantations and annual tea output in the country is on a continuous rise. However, the latest Greenpeace investigation has discovered that the massive use of chemical pesticides is seriously affecting the safety of tea in the Chinese market.
In December 2011 and January 2012 Greenpeace took samples from nine well-known tea companies including China Tea Company Limited (referred to below as China Tea), Tenfu’s Tea, Beijing Wuyutai Tea Company Limited, (referred to below as Wuyutai), Zhang Yiyuan Tea Company Limited, (referred to below as Zhang Yiyuan) and Richun Joint-stock Company (referred to below as Richun) (see Annex 1). Greenpeace purchased at random 18 different kinds of medium-grade tea, all popular with consumers. The samples were sent to an accredited third-party laboratory for pesticide testing. The price of these tea samples ranged from RMB120 to RMB2,000 per kilogram; varieties tested were green tea, oolong tea and jasmine tea. The results showed that every one of the 18 samples from the nine tea manufacturers contained at
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