Dear Tea lovers,

Organic Teas are a sensitive matter.
While the well to do estates convert to Organic even at the cost of
losing harvest, and subsequently get premium prices, sometimes even
for the Teas which are poor on the palate; there are some estates
which are automatically Organic as they do not have money even to pay
the wages of their workers ... let alone use fertilizers and
pesticides / weedicides.
Its a pity and its a paradox.
At http://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/ an article has been posted -
which may I request the lovers to read and comment upon.

Regards,
Jayesh S Pandya.

On Jan 28, 7:56*am, teapandya wrote:
Dear Tea lovers,

Organic Teas are a sensitive matter.
While the well to do estates convert to Organic even at the cost of
losing harvest, and subsequently get premium prices, sometimes even
for the Teas which are poor on the palate; there are some estates
which are automatically Organic as they do not have money even to pay
the wages of their workers ... let alone use fertilizers and
pesticides / weedicides.
Its a pity and its a paradox.
Athttp://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/an article has been posted -
which may I request the lovers to read and comment upon.

Regards,
Jayesh S Pandya.

Blended teas are safer? Toci

On Jan 28, 9:52*pm, toci wrote:
On Jan 28, 7:56*am, teapandya wrote:

Dear Tea lovers,

Organic Teas are a sensitive matter.
While the well to do estates convert to Organic even at the cost of
losing harvest, and subsequently get premium prices, sometimes even
for the Teas which are poor on the palate; there are some estates
which are automatically Organic as they do not have money even to pay
the wages of their workers ... let alone use fertilizers and
pesticides / weedicides.
Its a pity and its a paradox.
Athttp://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/anarticle has been posted -
which may I request the lovers to read and comment upon.

Regards,
Jayesh S Pandya.

Blended teas are safer? * * Toci

Dear Toci,

Yes, blended Teas are indeed far more safer than Single estate teas,
unless procured from a very reliable source.
The more the number of estates / lots / invoices ... the safer they
tend to get, by the law of averages. Residue levels of pesticides can
sway wildly in case of Single estate harvests, but would remain fairly
constant, and usually within limits, in case of (properly) Blended
Teas. In fact a master blender would take care to mix as many teas as
possible, while invariably attaining his standards. This will not only
ensure safety, but also provide uniqueness which cannot easily be
replicated.

The organoleptic proof is in the increased roundness of the liqours of
blended teas.

Regards,
Jayesh S Pandya.

As do many organic protagonists Jayesh overstates his case. He
maintains "Avoid First Flush Teas. During the months of dormancy, the
bushes go through a lot of stress ... Frost, Drought, Aphids et al. So
to sustain the plants, a lot of Pesticides +Muriate of Potash + Di
Ammonium Phosphate + Sulphur is sprayed. There being no harvest, the
plant can not digest / metabolise these chemicals. It all builds
up ....."
While agreeing on minimizing pesticides, I can see no harm in Muriate
of Potash - this is KCl (potassium chloride) the second most abundant
salt in human blood and without which you die. It is the principle
ingredient in the life saving salt replacement packs given out in
their millions by WHO to mother whose sick kids would otherwise die
from diarrhoea. Nor can I fault Di Ammonium Phosphate - a pretty
innocuous compound whose essential ions are found in all fertile soils
be they 'organic' or not. And (last time I checked) elemental Sulfur
is accepted as 'organic' by IFOAM the HQ agency that certifies all the
organic certifiers.

Nigel at Teacraft

On Jan 28, 1:56*pm, teapandya wrote:
At http://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/an article has been posted -
which may I request the lovers to read and comment upon.

On Feb 4, 3:57 pm, Nigel wrote:
As do many organic protagonists Jayesh overstates his case. He
maintains "Avoid First Flush Teas. During the months of dormancy, the
bushes go through a lot of stress ... Frost, Drought, Aphids et al. So
to sustain the plants, a lot of Pesticides +Muriate of Potash + Di
Ammonium Phosphate + Sulphur is sprayed. There being no harvest, the
plant can not digest / metabolise these chemicals. It all builds
up ....."
While agreeing on minimizing pesticides, I can see no harm in Muriate
of Potash - this is KCl (potassium chloride) the second most abundant
salt in human blood and without which you die. It is the principle
ingredient in the life saving salt replacement packs given out in
their millions by WHO to mother whose sick kids would otherwise die
from diarrhoea. Nor can I fault Di Ammonium Phosphate - a pretty
innocuous compound whose essential ions are found in all fertile soils
be they 'organic' or not. And (last time I checked) elemental Sulfur
is accepted as 'organic' by IFOAM the HQ agency that certifies all the
organic certifiers.

Nigel at Teacraft

On Jan 28, 1:56 pm, teapandya wrote:

Athttp://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/anarticle has been posted -
which may I request the lovers to read and comment upon.

The article does run counter to intuition as anyone with experience of
tasting single estate tea would know that the First Flush are of the
highest quality.

Contaminants do not tend to matter in "tippy" tea such as the green,
white, yellow and even some of the red, black and pu-erh (those made
of tea shoots) simply because the leaves harvested are so damned
young. Environmental chemicals increase exponentially with leaf age,
so different plant parts would have different levels of environmental
chemicals.

The problem of organic certification is that (A) it doesn't mean it is
the highest quality and (B) it can be easily manipulated, not just in
China and India, but all over the third world countries.

There are good and bad organic teas. The issue lies with the
trustworthiness of your home country tea vendors - who do they prefer
to deal with?

Julian
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com