Tea is an enormously popular crop that has been a critical part of commerce and culture for centuries. Not only is tea the most popular drink after water across the globe, it's hugely popular in the U.S. In 2014, Americans drank about 3.6 billion gallon of tea, hot or iced, which equals about 80 billion servings, according to the Tea Association of the USA.
The segment of the population who drinks the most tea are millennials – 87 percent drink tea – meaning that its importance in the U.S. will likely only continue to grow. While more than 158 million people drink tea each day in the U.S., much of the tea is grown outside its borders. The U.S. is second only to Russia as the largest importer of tea, according to Tea USA.
If you're considering getting into tea farming, you're curious about the pests on plantations or you want to know which chemicals are in your tea cup, learn more about how and why pesticides are used in tea production.
Tea plantations are heaven for pests
A 2008 study from Mizoram Central University in India, which was published in the Journal of Environmental Biology, explained that the way tea is typically grown creates a great situation for pests. Tea is a perennial that is often grown in monoculture, meaning that there aren't other crops grown along with it. This, along with the climates that best facilitate tea growth have created "favorable conditions" for pests, the study explained.
Many of the world's top tea producers – China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Turkey – have been growing the crop for centuries. However, most farmers have been shifting to a pest control method heavier toward using chemical pesticides to fight off these plentiful pests. Over time many tea pests have developed resistance to some pesticides and the public has become upset by the pesticides that have been commonly used, such as DDT, endosulfan, dicofol and ethion. The 2008 report noted that these concerns, along with the cost of treating tea have had an impact.
"The growing concern about the pesticide residue in made tea, its toxicity hazards to consumers, the spiraling cost of pesticides and their application have necessitated a suitable planning which will ensure a safe, economic as well as effective pest management in tea," the report explained.
Pesticide residues in common brands
Since 2008, many people have examined the amounts of pesticides that are found in the tea that actually makes it into millions of people's homes. A Canadian Food Inspection Agency study that was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in 2014 found that many pesticides not only made it into people's cupboards but also to the tea itself.
"The pesticide residues were likely transferred from tea leaves to brewed tea during the brewing process, and may therefore pose a risk to consumers," the study concludes, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Many of the world's most common pesticides were found in quantities less or far less than 1 part per million. Acetamaprid, chlorpyrifos, thiacloprid, imidaclopride, dicofol, methomyl, endosulfan sulfate and carbendazim were among the pesticides found in brewed cups of tea from Lipton, Twinings, Tetley and Uncle Lee's Legends of China found in Canada.
The Tea Association of Canada and the respective brands defended their products and tea in general, telling the CBC that pesticides are a fact of modern agriculture and that tea is safe for consumers to drink.
The pesticides used in tea continues to be a hotly contested issue. Demand for tea is still massive around the world, but the countries that produce the largest amounts of the plant may not have the regulations in place to forbid the use of certain pesticides, such as DDT, that are banned in other parts of the world.
