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Tiny Plastic Particles Raise Big Concerns

Tea industry suppliers rush to defend the publicly maligned tea bag following media coverage of a research paper that revealed heat-sealed pyramid bags made of nylon and PET release billions of nanoplastic particles during a five-minute steep. Read more

The Real Panama

When someone says Panama, the free association word has for time immemorial been "canal." Now it is associated with the height of luxury, the $250 cup of coffee. Read more

Dec 11, 2019 12:00 AM Bethany Haye Features

ACMA T4 Modula. Photo courtesy ACMA

Adaptive Bagging

Modern tea bagging lines are marvels of ingenuity; compact and complex machines that perform a seemingly simply task. Read more

Dec 10, 2019 10:02 AM Peter Keen Features

Volcafe

Organic Coffee Certification in China

Organic coffees and teas are on the upswing in China. But it’s not all a walk in the park. There are still issues to tackle. Read more

Dec 11, 2019 12:00 AM Thomas Schmid Features

Holding Back Coffee Beans in Vietnam

Analysts predict a recovery in global coffee prices in 2020 due to declining production and some hoarding in Vietnam. Read more

Dec 7, 2019 2:58 PM Eugene Gerden Features

Point of View:

Retaining Tea’s Healthy Halo

Tests for food safety do not assess plastic leachate from tea bags under electron microscopes with resolutions millions of times greater than conventional microscopes. Those tests are underway. No one really knows if these very, very small micro- and nano-particles when ingested in small amounts are harmless but researchers calculate the average person ingests hundreds of thousands of particles a year from food, air and some types of tea bags. “That’s a non-trivial dose.”

Read Dan Bolton's commentary