China's Tea Quality.

China's tea industry has experienced a great deal of change that has been part of a larger transformation of China's agriculture system. These changes have been part and parcel of the change from a collective coordinated system of people's communes to a system of family farming. Associated with these reforms of agricultural production numerous quality problems have emerged which are now being addressed.

Under the system of family farming individual families became responsible for agricultural production of relatively small plots of land. With 800-900 million peasants, the size of Chinese family farms was miniaturized with the scale of production far lower than that of North American family farms. Indeed the scale of production approximates feudalism more than modern agriculture. The purpose of this transformation was to encourage the hard work typical of farms all over the world, and to increase incentive for efficiency and innovation.

Within the context of family responsibility in farming, Chinese peasants enjoyed the freedom to produce what they wanted and to do so by the methods peasant families felt would best increase their profits and incomes. In a Chinese context this freedom was exercised in a manner that integrated production of botanicals like tea, with animal husbandry even on the plots of land that constitute the family farm or the equivalent. The small scale of production also altered and influenced the delivery of agricultural products to processing factories.

The miniaturized scale of production led to the reemergence of a class of peddlers to collect, combine and deliver agricultural raw products to factories for processing. The peddler class stratified into small, midsized and large peddlers with the farmers supplying the latter. The peddler class and small collection stations functioned as Great Walls intervening between farmer and factory.

Associated with this system, were many new quality problems for both tea and many other agricultural products. Relative to tea these problems were chiefly microbiological contamination and presence of pesticide residue. As China's agricultural production system was becoming more fragmented and quality control was harder to enforce among tens of millions of small family farms, quality control standards in both Europe and America were simultaneously becoming more strict as modern science more clearly and convincingly demonstrated the importance of quality standards for protecting human health. These concerns are of course appropriate not only for the people of the foreign markets but also for Chinese consumers.

The re-emergence of cooperative farms and larger tea plantations has occurred. Often these cooperative farms and tea estates have been developed in remote mountainous areas where conditions for tea production are ideal but where the need for, or habit of, using chemical pesticides does not exist. These new producing areas are increasing in size and tea output. Several meet Europe's strict regulations for organic tea, according to Swiss and German certifiers.

With the above perspective in mind, and the mutual desire of our company and our valued customers, we undertook two years ago a month-long research trip to several major Chinese tea producing areas. We visited numerous tea plantations, processing factories and tea blending factories in important tea producing provinces of Zhejiang, Hunan and Yunnan. We visited plantations and factories that produce panfired, steamed or organic green teas as well as black tea and scented tea. We visited lower plantations and high grown tea producing areas.

Realizing that many of the quality issues that emerged were systemic to the early stages of reforming Chinese tea production, we advocated a more systematic approach that sought to prevent problems at the earliest stages during which quality problems could arise and during all intermediary and final stages before export. The perspective we presented to our Chinese friends was positive and optimistic and realistic. China, we asserted, is known throughout the world as the birthplace of tea consumption and the tea plant camellia sinensis. China has become a center of some of the most advanced and exciting scientific research on tea's health benefits -- which may extend to contributing to the prevention of cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses plaguing modern societies. China produces the widest range and variety of gourmet teas of any nation in the world. There are fascinating tales of tea culture, books, poetry, tea ware and tea legends associated with China. On the slopes of mountains in western Y unnan 17 tea trees have been discovered at 8,400 feet elevation, and they are like aged English oaks ranging from 2,400-2,600 years old. With this grand and unique history and this new promise for tea, China had the need to face any problems that existed, analyze their causes and to work hard to fashion effective solutions.

With this in mind, and with the cooperation and assistance of some respected friends in the American tea industry, we worked to organize three conferences, which were held successively in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Changsha, Hunan and Kunming, Yunnan Province.

Since our perspective indicated we needed to fashion a systematic and comprehensive solution to problems that had multiple origins, we asked the Chinese to invite experts who could address and solve the problems from several dimensions. Participants in the conference and follow-up meetings from the Chinese side included exporters, tea factory managers, professors from Chinese agricultural universities, Chinese quality control inspection bureaus, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, professors of micro-biology and laboratories for sophisticated chemical analysis of agricultural products. The purpose of gathering representatives with such breadth was to mobilize efforts to solve problems on basic grass root levels to encourage a systematic approach and establish systems to analyze and verify progress.

The general goal of the conferences was to generate on strategic incentive and approach so China, the homeland of tea, would remain a vital participant in the bright future of the tea industry.

Several months following the three tea conferences held in May/June 1999 we began to learn of concrete measures that were being taken on numerous provincial levels. These steps included instituting strict sanitary requirements including washing and wearing gloves and clean rubber boots in tea processing factories. Floor blending was prohibited in many tea factories. Rules were established to separate animals from tea farms or tea plots. The drawing and analysis of samples for micro-biological safety began on both a factory level and export level to assure that the teas -- prior to export -- were re-confirmed by both corporate and independent laboratories as suitable for export. In addition, various pesticides previously used in China and abroad were prohibited to produce or apply. Laboratories were established for use in pesticide analysis of teas produced throughout China.

Very detailed instructions have been given to tea growing areas. The Chinese, when issuing these careful and detailed instructions wrote, "Although the quantity of exports in 1999 with problems is very small relative to China's total tea exports we have adequate reason to ring the alarm bell to all tea facilities."

China is a huge country with a highly de-centralized agricultural system of small family farms. That being the case, it is a formidable task to achieve simultaneous and homogeneous solutions to these problems on either a national or even a provincial level. Responsible exports and responsible factories began to exercise greater strictness among their suppliers punishing those who did not meet quality standards and rewarding those that did. Networks of reliable suppliers have formed during the past two years. Factories, for example, will discriminate against farmers who integrate animal husbandry with tea growing. Factories will favor areas in which the broader agricultural production of crops does not favor or require the use of pesticides. In some tea plantations the use of either manual labor or ecological methods have replaced the use of chemical pesticides. The presence of animals and the use of animal fertilizer have been prohibited in numerous tea growing areas. Numerous government and corporate regula tions have been promulgated since 1999. Knowledge of pesticides whose use has been prohibited in Germany, the EU, Japan, and South Korea has spread, and import of pesticides acceptable in the EU has been made.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation has held high level meetings with EU officials on the new and more rigorous EU quality standards. Greater international cooperation to establish protocols of testing and management of agricultural production has developed. China will soon enter the World Trade Organization. This along with the awarding of the 2008 Olympic Games to China, has spurred renewal of commitment throughout China to not only conform to but be an innovative leader in pollution control, quality control, and production and export of high quality products.

Most importantly there is greater awareness among leaders of the Chinese tea industry of the need for more integrated systems of production that will allow the uniform and strict enforcement of the production and testing techniques in farms and factories necessary to attain and maintain strict quality control. While the task of quality control is a formidable, and daunting one, the Chinese tea industry better realizes the need to face and solve problems. Reports from tea blenders in the U.K., the continent and North America indicate that responsible Chinese exporters have indeed made great strides.

China's tea industry members are delighted that current scientific research is confirming the ancient Chinese intuition of 5 millennia past that tea is rich in benefits to human health. It would be premature to say all problems are solved. But it is correct to say that great progress in quality control has been made and more is planned. This progress rests upon the serious work outlined above and the sense of a strategic mission to fully participate in tea's bright future.

Ronald Phipps is the president of tea importer, China Products North America, Inc. based in Jericho, New York, which was the first U.S. company to import teas from China. Phipps is also a founding member of the Tea and Health Committee of the U.S. Tea Association.