50 Lan Four Seasons Spring Tea confirmed to have excessive pesticide residues, updates on the incident continue
Updated April 23, 16:00
The Tainan City Health Bureau has confirmed that 50 Lan's Four Seasons Spring tea did indeed exceed pesticide limits. Because the tea was purchased on March 18, the new regulations apply, under which the residue limit for the pesticide fipronil is 0.002 ppm; 50 Lan's level was 0.003 ppm. In addition, Tainan's Songhe Tea Factory also had a black tea sample fail inspection. Other details are still under investigation.
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The Taichung City Health Bureau conducted an overnight inspection of hand-shaken beverage vendors in the city last night and found 4 that were suspected of having pesticide residues. Two of them are well-known chain beverage businesses, both headquartered in Tainan. Taichung City Health Bureau spokesperson Shih Jui-yi revealed that one of them is 50 Lan, which has now been handed over to Tainan City for inspection. However, because of differences in testing methods and in the production dates of the tea leaves in question, it is still impossible to state conclusively that 50 Lan has a problem.
50 Lan's Four Seasons Spring tea was found by Taichung City last night to have fipronil residues exceeding the instrument's detection limit of 0.001 ppm. However, during the inspection of another well-known Taichung tea factory, inspectors received a response from the operator that the tea in the factory was produced before July of last year, and under the regulations of the Ministry of Health and Welfare at that time, the detection limit for the pesticide fipronil in tea was 0.005 ppm. It was not until after July that the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the latest testing method, lowering the detection limit for fipronil in tea to 0.002 ppm.
In response, after the Taichung City Health Bureau sought confirmation from officials of the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA ruled that the tea's production date must be used as the basis for discussing which standard should apply to the pesticide residues. When a reporter sought confirmation from Pan Chih-kuan, head of the food section of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Food and Drug Administration, he also said that testing methods must be "judged according to the law," and that tea produced before July of last year should be judged according to the earlier testing standard.
At present, the Tainan City Health Bureau has gone to 50 Lan's head office to conduct an inspection, and the results will be announced successively.