Tea Quality Testing and Organic Certification

The subject of quality assurance, control, and general organic certification is a big one in most modern markets. Yishan Teashop is committed to providing our customers the assurance that our teas are extremely safe to drink, let alone healthy! How does this work exactly?

Organic certification in China. The state of the global certification system is such that all members must be non-government affiliated. This normally makes sense, but in China the government holds a firm grip of control on its organic certification body. What this means is that while many teas might be organically certified by the government here, abroad they are not allowed to be labeled so. Technically-speaking, the Chinese certification and the global ones are the same, with identical goals and simply slight differences in the numbers behind the requirements. The main thing holding it back from membership from the global certification bodies is its attachment to the government's department of agriculture. Another difference between the two systems is the sheer cost. Since many of the highest quality tea farms in China are small and often family-owned, they simply cannot afford such certification, and especially not the global ones. Luckily a farm trying to provide quality tea would certainly be avoiding pesticides and other questionable agriculture methods. Not only that, but often anything that might compromise taste or trust would be something avoided at all costs. Does that mean that no globally certified farms exist? No, there are some, but few are producing teas of any decent quality. Many of them are the largest government-owned farms in China that also often produce tea for export only, using names like 'Green-2123'. Often these are the jokes of the Chinese tea industry, since they are the teas that the Chinese don't want to drink!

Without proper certification, how are the teas' quality guaranteed. By beginning with the best teas from the highest respected farms hidden away throughout the tea areas of China, quality isn't much of a problem. Many regions are completely protected by the government as cultural production regions, and some, like the Wuyi Mountains are even World Heritage Sites. But just in case, we also do our own testing through the Universities Tea Testing Institute which fairly quickly can test our teas against all known contaminants and pesticides. If you are still curious about these tests, please contact us and we can send you some copies of the results!