Problems with ingredients for hand-shaken tea: FDA to switch imported tea leaves and edible flower buds to 100% inspection
Problems with hand-shaken tea drinks keep emerging. Jiang Yumei, Director-General of the Food and Drug Administration under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said today that inspection intensity at border customs has been increased, and all imported tea leaves and edible flower buds have been raised to 100% inspection. At the same time, Hsu Ming-neng, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said during interpellation at the Legislative Yuan that a meeting will be held within one month to discuss requiring businesses to label calories, the place of origin of ingredients and other information on the outer packaging of drinks.
50 Lan's ingredients come from Sanqing Tea Manufacturing, with the source being tea farmers in Nantou
The chain hand-shaken beverage store British Blue recently voluntarily sent its tea ingredients for testing, and pesticide residues exceeding the limit were detected. This afternoon, it was also reported that the Sijichun tea ingredient of the well-known beverage business 50 Lan had fipronil pesticide residue detected at 0.003 ppm. In the evening, an investigation by the Tainan City Health Bureau confirmed that this batch of problematic tea was purchased by 50 Lan on March 18 last year from the upstream supplier Sanqing Tea Manufacturing. Therefore, the inspection standard revised by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in July last year applies, under which fipronil must not exceed 0.002 ppm. Because the pesticide residue in the Sijichun tea exceeded the limit by 0.001 ppm, the Health Bureau carried out a preventive removal from shelves on the spot and required the temporary suspension of sales of that item.
Because Sanqing Tea Manufacturing could not provide a passing inspection report, the Health Bureau has required the business to stop selling the related tea product items. According to the investigation, Sanqing Tea Manufacturing's source was not imported from abroad, but came from tea farmers in Nantou County, and the matter is still under investigation.
Taipei City Health Bureau sends all five 50 Lan tea items for testing, results to be announced within three weeks
The Taipei City Health Bureau earlier also sent 50 Lan's tea ingredients within its jurisdiction for testing, including five tea items: Golden Oolong tea, Sijichun green tea, jasmine green tea, black tea and Ceylon black tea. The test results are expected to be announced within three weeks, and a "tea safety special project" meeting will be convened tomorrow.
Regarding the hand-shaken tea drink issue, Jiang Yumei said that through the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, discussions will be held with tea-exporting countries to guide farmers on pesticide spraying and related matters; at the same time, for border customs, imported tea from 47 countries as well as flower buds listed under the "edible flowers" category will all be raised to 100% random inspection, carried out batch by batch in a manner of inspecting 3 batches.
As for the hand-shaken tea special inspection plans that local health units are successively launching, they are expected to be completed within one month.
Hsu Ming-neng pointed out that in the future, after risk assessment of hand-shaken tea drink businesses, if there are risk concerns, the mechanism of "one product fails, the whole store is removed from shelves" will not be ruled out. At the same time, the Ministry of Health and Welfare will also hold a meeting within one month to discuss requiring hand-shaken tea drink shops to label calories, the place of origin of ingredients and other information on the outer packaging of drinks.