Recommend a pesticide-free, ripe puerh for daily drinking.

[bongoman]

Hi there

I'm currently drinking a 2002 Fo Cha Ji (aka Fu Cha Ju) ripe puerh which I have been enjoying very much. It's winter here in the Sthn Hemisphere and I find myself gravitating more to puerh than the Taiwanese oolongs and Japanese greens that I also love...I find myself thinking about my first pot of puerh for the following morning as I drift off to sleep at night. This may just show the level of addiction I have, but nonetheless, I'm enjoying my puerh right now.

I'm wanting to order some more puerh and am looking for something that is definitely pesticide-free (not necessarily certified organic) and say, up to around $10 per 100g ($40 or less per cake, say).

I might order this 2003 * FU CHA JU * WU LIANG WILD ARBOR RIPE PU-ERH 357G and/or maybe this 2006 HAIWAN * RIPE PU-ERH TEA TRIBUTE BRICK * 100 GRAMS

but was wondering what other ripe puerhs might meet my requirements especially at lower price points. A good, clean drinkable tea, for drinking whilst I work or when I wake up in the morning.

I'm curious about unusual teas from small factories. I would need to know there are no pesticides involved.

[betta]

I would need to know there are no pesticides involved.

I'm not sure if there's a way to find out whether ripe puerh is made of leaves containing pesticide or not. So I would say, buy it without expecting that the stuff is pesticide free.

Maybe it will spark arguments here, but from my experiences and also what I heard from others, when it comes to honesty, doesn't matter in terms of business, study or anything, you shouldn't put too much hope.

[brose]

Just curious, how do you know that the two that you listed are pesticide free?
You could order some and get it tested yourself if you are that worried about pesticides. You would probably have to order a lot of cakes to make it worthwhile though. As with most products that are something certified, they will probably cost more due to the certification process and testing.

[skilfautdire]

You know that Yunnan Sourcing has a 'certified organic' offer of 7 357g ripe cakes in a bag from Six Famous Mountain. These cakes comes with an analysis sheet. I don't have any yet so I can't ask a Chinese colleague to fully translate the report, but from the web site we can see that there are some numbers in some columns meaning that it is not total 0 pesticide free. Although it seems that the detected amounts of certain substances (amongst them DDT, yes) are below what would be considered potentially nocive.

The cakes are available one by one also I think. 7 cakes are about $70.

This brings an interesting question though. First about organic certification. Is certified organic really totally free of any pesticide ? Does it have to be ? And second, what about our own certifications ? What does it take for instance to be certified organic by the USDA or JAS ?

[bongoman]

Brose, I don't know that those 2 cakes are in fact pesticide-free, nor do I know enough about puerh cultivation and production in the regions that those cakes come from to estimate the likelihood that pesticides wouldn't be used. Those 2 cakes appealed to me for other reasons - if I knew t

I imagine that certain vendors who travel in the tea growing regions of yunnan and make contact with growers and processors could say with reasonable certainly whether particular tea from a particular factory is grown with pesticides or not.

But at the end of the day, it's a preference for me, not necessarily a hard and fast rule. But if I knew with reasonable certainly that a cake was grown without the application of chemicals, then that is a major bonus for me in my selection process.

Skilfaut, thanks for pointing out that Yunnan Sourcing offering - it looks interesting.

[skilfautdire]

Another thing, many years ago I worked on a farm, an orchard, for several seasons. If anyone would come by out of the 'spraying days' (which I did, using basudin and such, that I'd put in a tank and hook it up the tractor) then you'd need a chemical analyzer to test for chemicals. I mean, after the day the spray is put on the trees, the scent might linger for another day or two (depending very much on weather) and then its gone.

With this I mean that if the tea vendor happens to drop by really out of the way of spray times then it's not that obvious. He'd have to rely on what the farmer says. Moreover we know pesticides can be mislabeled in China. An analysis is really the way to go, and the Six Famous Mountain tea offering is great for that (I shall receive a bag if the ship ever makes it across the ocean !).

Now of course we can question the sincerity of the analysis and the organic certification. After all, this is a close loop system. There are no international observers, so to speak.

As far as I'm concerned I approve the effort. I try to buy as much as possible puerh (or any other Chinese teas) that has an organic certification. If only to encourage them in the process. But then I'm aware that there are farmers who do not use chemical pesticides and do not want to spend the money needed for the certification.

I was told by a Chinese colleague that in Mao times it was crazy. There was a big push to use chemicals in farming. Thus said I *believe* some farmers do not use pesticide and grow tea bushes as they always did before. Yet, they might not want the certification.

So I'm amazed at seeing Hoffman in 'All in this tea' rejecting teas by a quick smell. If he's right, he's good !

And for Japanese teas, there's Yuuki-cha !

n.b.: If anyone has links that explains what is required for USDA and/or JAS organic certification I'd appreciate - thanks.

[nicolas]

I would suggest the 2003 Organic Purple Dayi, which is certified organic by the Organic Food Development Center of China (OFDC).

[Maitre_Tea]

an interesting article from the NY Times to peruse over if you're interested in the subject of organic products from China:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/busin ... ref=dining

[BioHorn]

Ressurecting this thread:
There is a 2010 paper on arsenic in Puerh (from pesticides used in China that contain it.) Does someone have a pubmed subscription?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20413147

Here is the abstract:

Sci Total Environ. 2010 Jun 15;408(14):2777-84. Epub 2010 Apr 21.
Exposure and risk assessment for aluminium and heavy metals in Puerh tea.
Cao H, Qiao L, Zhang H, Chen J.
Source

State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. caohongbin@ires.cn
Abstract

As the consumption of Puerh tea is booming because of its multiple health-promoting effects, the possible health risks resulting from long-term exposure to metals contained in this tea need to be evaluated. To assess the human risk associated with drinking Puerh tea, concentrations of aluminium, lead, cadmium, mercury, zinc, copper and arsenic were determined in samples of Puerh tea, tea leaves from the plants, and planted soil collected from the Yunnan province, China. Site-specific exposure parameters such as body weight and consumption rate of Puerh tea were investigated in Kunming and Puer cities using face-to-face surveys. Health risks were evaluated for the inhabitants of Kunming and Puer cities by gender and by age groups. Although the Puerh tea plant easily absorbs aluminium from soil, the concentrations of Al and six other elements in Puerh tea were all far below the safety concentration limits of China. Both the HQ (Hazard Quotient) values for single elements and the HI (Hazard Index) value for all seven elements were far below one, indicating no non-carcinogenic risks from these seven elements for inhabitants of Kunming and Puer under the current consumption rates of Puerh tea. However, probabilistic estimation of carcinogenic risk shows that the 95th percentile carcinogenic rate of arsenic in Puerh tea approaches the accepted risk level of 10(-4) for the highest exposure group. Therefore, the arsenic in Puerh tea is of concern.

Could someone explain what this (below) means please?
"However, probabilistic estimation of carcinogenic risk shows that the 95th percentile carcinogenic rate of arsenic in Puerh tea approaches the accepted risk level of 10(-4) for the highest exposure group."

[Drax]

Could someone explain what this (below) means please?
"However, probabilistic estimation of carcinogenic risk shows that the 95th percentile carcinogenic rate of arsenic in Puerh tea approaches the accepted risk level of 10(-4) for the highest exposure group."

I'm not sure it's clear if "highest exposure group" means the group exposed to the areas of greatest arsenic concentration, or the group that *drinks* the most Puerh... but....

I take "risk level of 10(-4)" to mean a 0.0001 probability (or 0.01%) of a person developing cancer, and that this is the limit set for "acceptable" exposure to arsenic.

Thus, they would appear to be saying that the group with the highest exposure (again, see comment above) comes *close* to that risk level.

They can make that conclusion from the data to the 95% level, which is a standard level of certainty.

Or at least, that's my take....

[BioHorn]

From what you are saying Drax the highest group only begins to approach the highest accepted level (and surely being Yunnan residents that is after drinking a heck of a lot of Pu.)

Can someone from the region chime in on pesticide use?
Is the cost of the pesticides regained in the "good" quality of leaf? (maybe pesticides are cheap in China?)
Do pesticides make their way up those remote/ far-flung Pu growing regions?

How much damage do pest inflict on var. assamica?
Thanks.

Hans

[auhckw]

Find those Pu that the wrapping is badly eaten by Silverfish. If you can even see Silverfish staying in the Pu even better. Proven pesticide free for insects

[Drax]

From what you are saying Drax the highest group only begins to approach the highest accepted level (and surely being Yunnan residents that is after drinking a heck of a lot of Pu.)

I believe so, yes. We'd need the full article to see how they defined "highest exposure group."

[the_skua]

I downloaded the article and got distracted into writing up a summary of their methods and findings. Check it out on my blog.

[BioHorn]

Tom,
I read through your blog post.
Thank you for taking the time to delve into the paper.

One of the things I out out of it is another reminder that some shu can have dubious provenance. But it is interesting that Puer City drank much more shu than Kunming.

Looks like this might translate to many TC pu drinkers at a 10X scale. The study showed 6.8g sheng for 1000ml. Seems like many people here drink 5-10 grams per 100ml!

What were the brewing times? I bet they were much longer steeps than gongfu/packed pot/gaiwan style.

Maybe 2 washes of pu is not a bad idea. I wish someone would check on the effect of short rinses. At what rate do the metals become soluble.

I'll be sure not to eat those decades old leaves!