This is a well-established, independent testing lab located in Germany.
The report describes the analysis of commonly available (tea-bag) green teas from a variety of tea growing regions. The goal of the report was to compare and contrast pesticide residuals detects (recent vs 1999 testing), using organic solvent and water as extraction media, employing state-of-art detection instrumentation (reflected in the significant decrease in detection threshold and number of analytes evaluated)
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Google translation, results section, main page:
We have in 30 green teas from different growing regions, including 10 Japanese, (tested) for up to 440 pesticides. (this is a very high number of 'analytes' (individual compounds) to test for in solvent extracted tea samples - it probably includes known degradation products)
And we find it was: four teas were clearly burdened, three teas even harder.
(Definition of 'burdened', from table of results page)
Not charged: No pesticides detected.
Very lightly loaded, the value for one or more pesticides were lower than 10 percent of the maximum.
Lightly loaded, the value for one or more pesticides ranged between 10 and 50 percent of the maximum.
Significantly burdened: The value for one or more pesticides exceeded 50 percent of the maximum.
Heavy load: The value for one or more pesticides were taking into account the analytical variability in the maximum level or above.
In "noble Gyokuro Dew Drop", with 17 per 100 grams of the most expensive tea in the test, responded promptly to the importer as well as analysis of the reported values.The tea there is already no longer in the trade.
Striking in the three heavily used Japanese tea is the high number of pesticides found. A cocktail of as many as 20 different sprays, we found in green tea "Itoen" - and 12 of them exceeded the prescribed limit.
With a mix of 14 and 13 pesticides, the two other heavily polluted teas are continuing the negative list.
Harmful interactions of different individual substances have not been established, but - according to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) - but (it is) at least conceivable.
Compared with our first test in 1999, green tea still shows a positive trend. At that time, from a total of 68 tea for more than half of heavily loaded, and only 7 had tea residue. And although today we can identify, thanks to improved analysis of pesticides around 200 more are in the current trial of 30 teas, only 3 heavily loaded. In none (no samples) was eight pesticides were detected. Among the six (detects) very small traces of the pesticide contaminated teas are so minimal that they were probably introduced may not be applied by spraying, but by the environment.
(Kevin and I both mention this in our posts)
Striking: All three teas come from Japan's highly polluted tea gardens.
But six of the eight pesticide-free teas - five of which bear an organic seal. He is either not sprayed with pesticides or pesticide traces are so small that they meet the strict requirements of the organic cultivation.
But panic is hot in any case: Not all pollutants end up in the cup. In a sample with an infusion of highly exposed teas, we found again only a few water-soluble pesticides.
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OK, bottom line is even for the worst case (heavily burdened, all Japanese) teas (10 percent of brands sampled), a few water extractable chemicals were detected.
Background reading on the larger issue of environmental contamination by pesticides, see: USGS (2006) publication on pesticides in US surface waters (streams, lakes, rivers)
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3028/
I instinctively reached for a bag of super-fertilized sencha because I know it will likely have a lot more flavor. It's a hard habit to break. I do want to drink more organic sencha but sometimes it does disappoint.
That stuff is a little pricey but it's good to know it's organic and environmentally friendly. If you had Warashina in a blind taste test, do you think you could tell that it is organic? The Magokoro shincha from yuuki-cha this year was the first one I've tried that could possibly have fooled me into thinking it was not organically grown.