Are you drinking adulterated tea?

Cup of tea? Ceylon, green or rooibos?

We have the privilege of choosing from an immense variety of teas in our daily lives; but do we really know what we’re drinking? Adulteration of tea has been taking place since the early 1800s, and not only decreases the quality of the product, but also leads to harmful health consequences – and may even cause allergic reactions in unsuspecting consumers.

Tea is one of our most preferred drinks; however, teas that have been adulterated could contain harmful materials such as artificial colourants, azo dye, or coal tar dye; Prussian blue or indigo; graphite, gypsum, or soapstone – as well as re-used tea, which is dried and added to fresh tea. These additions to tea may contain chemicals or pesticides, or are additives which for various other reasons do not belong in tea, so they must be identified.

This iniquitous practice continues to be perpetrated by manufacturers aiming to reduce costs and increase profits. There have been occurrences from around the world – many in India, where colourants, tartrazine and even ground cashew-nut husk (which can cause an allergic reaction) have been identified as adulterants. But Sri Lanka, China, Colombia and Japan also appear in the list of countries where adulteration of tea has occurred.

The Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act, 1972 (Act No. 54 of 1972) prohibits the sale, manufacture or import for sale of any foodstuff which contains or has been treated with a substance not present in any such foodstuff when it is in a normal, pure and sound condition; or to which any substance has been added so as to increase the mass or volume of such foodstuff with the object to deceive.

The Consumer Protection Act (Act 68 of 2008) (CPA) was enacted, among other reasons, to protect consumers from hazards to their well-being and safety, and to set out consumers’ rights to safe, good-quality goods. The CPA also prohibits the direct or indirect marketing to the consumer of goods if the marketing implies a false, misleading or deceptive misrepresentation concerning a material fact.

Whether your company manufactures tea or any other foodstuff, identifying how your raw materials may be vulnerable to adulteration can be managed by completing a vulnerability assessment and critical control point study (VACCP). Incident scanning can be a useful step in this assessment method for keeping up to date with raw material adulteration vulnerability.

Laboratory analysis – by which adulteration can be identified – is another step in the VACCP process of assessment. In the case of tea, spices, herbs, whey powder, crystalline ingredients and starch particles, microscopic analysis can be a useful analysis tool. For a full list of samples for which microscopic analysis can be useful, please download our testing catalogue here.