The Executive Yuan's Office of Food Safety (OFS) announced today that it has uncovered a well-known domestic tea brand partnering with import/export traders to import banned tea from mainland China.
The tea is suspected to have been brought into Taiwan via transshipment from a third location. Deceptive reports of the tea's production site were allegedly provided to customs.
The Shihlin District Prosecutors Office indicted the operators on December 1 based on the Punishment of Smuggling Act and other laws, and the case is undergoing court proceedings.
Pu-erh (or Pu'er) tea is the only tea from mainland China permitted for import into Taiwan, the OFS pointed out.
The office emphasized that the Executive Yuan's cross-ministerial agencies and prosecutorial offices have worked together to crack down on illegally imported tea and other illegalities in order to safeguard consumers' health and interests.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) got hold of the case; the agency has been collaborating with the Council of Agriculture (COA) in developing technologies for identifying tea production sites in order to help sort out illegally imported tea leaves.
Under the Executive Yuan's "safe-health" anti-smuggling program and cross-agency collaborative efforts to crack down on aberrant commodity imports, the CGA, COA, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) along with prosecutors nationwide have enhanced border and market checks to root out any illicit activities.
The COA has also assisted 190 tea production units with plantations covering 1,200 hectares to pass tea traceability certification, the OFS further pointed out. Moreover, the COA has helped 13 major domestic tea zones that produce Alishan High-Mountain Tea to register for a product certification label to place on their product packaging for consumers to identify.
In order to help the general public acquire high-quality, healthy, safe and locally produced tea while protecting domestic tea producers' interests, the OFS called upon consumers to purchase from tea farmers' associations or choose tea with comprehensive traceability and production-site certification labeling.
The OFS also urged "hand-shaken tea" drink vendors, in particular chain stores, to prudently select tea-production sites when procuring tea leaves and to make this information publicly accessible so as to safeguard the reputation of their business.