The other
day I learned two cases about radiation-contained tea found at France and
Tokyo. Both cases happened in Jun
2011. I’m sorry that I did not know
about them when I wrote the previous entry about “Tea and radiation in Japan”.
Case in France
The tea was
found in an inspection at Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. The tea was imported from Shizuoka Japan and
it contained 1038bq of radiation. They
were discarded.
Source:
J-cast News (Japanese) http://www.j-cast.com/2011/06/19098848.html
Case in Tokyo
A mail
order company, Radish-boya in Tokyo found the tea with radiation on their
self-imposed test. The tea was from
Sizuoka and 521-569bq radioactive cesium.
Shizuoka prefecture has requested the manufacturer to recall it and stop
further distribution.
Source:
J-cast News (Japanese) http://www.j-cast.com/2011/06/10098144.html?p=all
The
Japanese safety limit for tea is 500bq/kg of radiation. The tea on both cases was over the limit and
they were both from Shizuoka prefecture.
I looked for the cause and measures in response to these incidences, but
I could not find any additional information about them. I also searched on the internet if there are
any other cases, but I could not find any.
So, I believe these are not frequently happening cases but I thought
that you should know that there were defects on the inspection. If I find more information about the radiation
on tea, I’ll introduce them on my blog.
My past entries
about the radiation and tea
Edited
on Nov 4
New entry about tea and radiationhttp://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2011/11/tea-production-regions-far-from.html
Posts
Oh no! That's worrisome. How much tea is grown in the affected region?
ReplyDeletehttp://sagacitea.blogspot.com/
Shizuoka prefecture is the biggest tea producing region in Japan. Their production is about 40% of the entire Japanese tea (the data from 2009).
ReplyDeleteShizuoka is not only the prefecture where radioactive tea has been found, but also in other prefectures such as Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba and Kanagawa. This doesn’t have to mean that teas from those prefectures are all contaminated. There are places called Hot Spots, those are areas where high radioactivity is present. Radioactive substances were found in the tea from some of those areas. (Sauce from Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japanese) http://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/2r9852000001dd6u.html) Those radioactive teas are restricted for distribution.
The problem is not the affected area. The problem is that there were defects on the inspection and teas which are found positive of high radiation content were distributed. I wanted to let my blog readers to know about it.
However, I’m still having tea from Shizuoka. I believe these are rare cases. If by any possibility my tea is one of those teas, I personally think the contaminated level is not that much for me to worry about.
If you don’t feel comfortable having tea from those areas, we have many other tea producing regions far from Fukushima. Listed prefectures are top ten producing regions (except Shizuoka) and I have not heard about any contaminated tea from the areas.
2. Kagoshima (Ei, Chiran, Makurazaki, Ariake)
3. Mie (Ise, Mizusawa, Suzuka, Kameyama, Iga)
4. Miyazaki (Miyakonojo)
5. Kyoto (Uji, Ayabe, Ryotan, Wazuka)
6. Nara (Yamato, Tukigase, Yamazoe)
7. Saga (Ureshino, Karatsu)
8. Kumamoto (Yabe, Izumi, Sagara, Kahoku)
9. Aichi (Nishio, Toyota, Shinsiro)
10. Nagasaki (Ureshino, Sonogi, Sechibaru, Goto)
Information on the Great East Japan Earthquake at Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (English) go to >>> http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/index.html
and yet so much censurship about this in japan :-X
ReplyDeleteand yet so much censurship about this in japan :-X
ReplyDelete