Tea store chain Stornaway (英國藍) was yesterday ordered to temporarily close all of its branches nationwide pending a further test of its tea products, following the discovery that three types of tea leaves it sold contained excessive pesticide residue.
The order was issued by the Tainan City Government’s Department of Health after Stornaway notified the agency earlier yesterday that samples of 330kg Earl Grey tea leaves, 150kg Ceylon tea leaves and 240kg Darjeeling tea leaves it purchased from Taipei-based Chou Chieh Trading Co (洲界貿易) last month were found to contain pesticide residue in a recent test it authorized a third party to conduct.
“In light of the latest findings, the department has instructed other local health bureaus to oversee the temporary shutdown of all of the chain’s 96 branches in the nation. All relevant tea products have been pulled from shelves,” Pharmaceutical Affairs Section official Cho Ching-ching (卓金津) said.
Photo: CNA
Cho said the help of the Taipei City Government’s Department of Health and the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office has been requested in identifying the source of Chou Chieh’s allegedly tainted tea leaves.
The shutdown order came after the Miaoli County Government’s Public Health Bureau on April 14 found that Stornaway’s rosebuds — also bought from Chou Chieh — were contaminated with 11 types of pesticides, including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), the so-called “poison of the century.”
A preliminary investigation showed that the tainted rosebuds were part of a 4.5 tonne shipment imported by Kaohsiung-based Yuen Yeeh Enterprise Co (原宜貿易) from Iran in August last year.
Taipei Department of Health Food and Drug Division director Wang Ming-li (王明理) said the department has confirmed that Chou Chieh was the sole ingredient supplier of all of Stornaway’s black tea products.
“According to data from the city’s food ingredient platform, the three kinds of contaminated black tea leaves were imported from Sri Lanka,” Wang said, adding that the agency yesterday confiscated 20 boxes weighing 600kg of the black tea leaves from Chou Chieh’s office on Liaoning Street.
Wang said Stornaway’s headquarters have been unreachable since it faxed the test results to Tainan’s health bureau, and that all of its 26 branches in Taipei were closed yesterday.
Taipei’s Department of Health urged food companies to immediately suspend manufacturing and sales of their products if they are found to pose a threat to public safety.
“Violators could face a fine ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$3 million [US$962.37 to NT$96,237] in accordance with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法),” it said.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
RSS