How do you convince someone to not only drink poo, but pay loads for the privilege? A 41-year-old former calligraphy teacher, An Yanshi, appears to have the answer: make sure it's panda poop. This professor-turned-businessman has purchased 11 tons of panda manure from Sichuan Province's panda breeding center and is using it to fertilize a new luxury crop of tea leaves in that same region. The price for the first line of pan-doo brew, slated for the shelves this spring, is estimated at around 215,000RMB per pound - approximately ten times as expensive as the white truffle, the priciest edible on earth. more ›

Lipton, the most prominent brand to be named by China's top quality watchdog among the 19 tea labels found to contain excessive rare earth content yesterday, has scrambled to action, recalling and destroying one batch of its product from supermarket shelves: more ›

China's quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, says that 19 products, including Lipton Tieguanyin (pictured on the right) have been found to contain excessive levels of potentially harmful rare-earth minerals in a random check of 58 oolong products from Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Guangdong. Five of these brands are manufactured by Shanghai-based companies and they are: Mingfeng, Jiaranlu, Zhengxiangyuan, Cuiming and Shenxin. more ›

A recent test of local milk tea and fresh juice samples conducted by the Shanghai Commission of Consumer Rights and Interests Protection revealed alarmingly high levels of bacteria. Out of 40 specimens, 12 fresh juice samples were found to contain large amounts of some bacteria types while 16 milk tea samples tested positive for high levels of E. coli, a microbe infamous for causing severe diarrhea or lā dùzi, as it is referred to locally. And you thought you only had to stay away from unwashed fruit and tap water. more ›

What better way to sell tea than have a international icon in your commercials? "Tong Yi Cha" (統一茶) tea company therefore decided to enlist the help of tech guru Steve Jobs to help hawk their wares...er kind of. more ›

You know how at real Chinese restaurants all over town, the waiters always look at you funny when you ask for a glass of ice water because locals normally drink tea water about the temperature of the surface of the sun? Well you can laugh in their smug "Oh these foreigners and their addiction to cold drinks" faces - because now there's studies saying that hot tea, tea over the temperature of 70C, has been linked to oesophageal cancer! more ›

From RFA:

近日有聽眾向本台提供片段，指廣州街邊出現不少不法商人將用過的舊茶葉晒乾，加上香精後，然後加上偽冒的一九五八年普洱包裝，在市場上銷售。由次片段所見，在廣州街邊有人在衛生條件惡劣的露天地方，將晒乾的茶葉包好，然後印上一九五八產普洱字樣出售。工人 在地上包裝和處理茶葉，整個包裝地點都未有任何衛生及消毒設施。 more ›

More and more international and Chinese brands are getting embroiled in the tainted milk scandal. Latest news from the Straits Times:

SOUTH Korea's food watchdog said on Tuesday that two more snacks imported from China were contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine, bringing the number of tainted brands discovered locally to six. more ›

Any Brits walking past the huge Marks & Spencer store on Nanjing Xi Lu (near Wujiang Lu) have spent the last few weeks dreaming of the clothes, accessories and food (but not weather) that they miss from back home. more ›