Question from turducken
Hi Debra,
I found out that there is lots of aluminum in black tea. This may be due to it coming from India and China, but it’s hard to know because almost all good tea comes from those countries.
Do you know:
1) what the levels of aluminum are?
2) how these compare to aluminum levels from other sources?
3) what safe levels of aluminum are?
Debra’s Answer
According to the study Contents of aluminum and manganese in tea leaves and tea infusions:
The content of aluminum in tea leaves was
The concentration of aluminum in tea infusions (tea leaves steeped in water) was
1 milliliter is 0.033814 fl oz, or about 6 teaspoons, or 2 tablespoons, or 1/4 cup.
As for safe levels of aluminum…
Standards established by the California Environmental Protection Agency for water allow 1000 micrograms/litre of aluminum. (or 1000 micrograms/1000 millilitre). That would be 1 microgram of aluminum per millilitre of water) or tea). You can easily see that the amounts of aluminum found in wulong tea exceed this limit, while some green teas and black teas exceed the limit and others do not.
