Tianren's non-compliant tea origin and downstream sales under investigation; Food and Drug Administration: inspecting tea merchants with capital of 30 million or more

Ten Ren Tea's black tea was found by the Taichung City Health Bureau to have pesticide residues exceeding the limit. In response, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that as early as the end of July, it will implement special programs for "traceability and tracking" and "mandatory inspection" targeting tea factories with registered capital of over 30 million yuan and importers of imported tea. (For the FDA's complete list of non-compliant commercially sold tea beverages, please click here or see the end of the article)

Wang Te-yuan, deputy director of the Northern Regional Management Center, said that traceability and tracking may follow the same approach used for oil products, requiring tea beverage manufacturing plants with registered capital of 30 million yuan or more to establish electronic traceability systems, while smaller manufacturers below that threshold must keep records of production volume, place of origin, shipments and other relevant information. As for mandatory inspection, large manufacturers will likewise be required to fulfill first-level quality control responsibilities.

However, the relevant policies are still in the drafting stage. Wang Te-yuan said that for the traceability and tracking portion, the tea industry and the oil industry differ in scale, and the specific details will take time to draft, but the aim is still to implement them by July 31 of this year.

In addition, regarding the earlier detection of fipronil residue in Ten Ren Tea's black tea exceeding the limit by 0.003 ppm, Wang Te-yuan said that where the tea leaves were produced and which unknown businesses they were sold to still require detailed investigation; however, the business may still request a re-test.

In the current bubble tea turmoil, the import side has, since April 24, implemented batch-by-batch inspection for a period of six months on the four major tea-importing countries: Vietnam, China, Sri Lanka and India; for large-package tea weighing over 3 kg imported from other countries, three consecutive batches are sampled and tested. For some domestic tea leaves that have run into problems, the FDA will work with the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture to guide producers on correct pesticide use.

Attachment - 2015 Non-Compliant Commercially Sold Tea Beverage Product Information