Tagged: food safety standard

China Deleted Its 26-Year Rare-Earth Standard for Tea

In 2012, Anxi farmers were caught spraying rare-earth fertilizer to force faster growth on cheap tea. In 2017, China deleted the food-safety standard that had caught them, after concluding tea itself carries the element naturally, oolong more than any other kind.

Oolong and the National Standard

A bag of oolong answers to a real government document before it answers to a taster, and the document is not one standard but a system: a mandatory floor, a recommended ceiling, and a technical committee of tea professionals who write both. Here is how China's standard system actually works, and where oolong sits inside it.