Counterfeit regional teas
Counterfeit regional teas are the most direct form of fraud. Mid-grade leaf from outside a protected area is sold under a protected name, usually at a price that implies protected-area origin.
The most common counterfeit is Longjing. Outside-Hangzhou leaf is pan-fired in a Longjing style and sold under the Longjing name, often at half to a tenth of the protected price. Buyers who do not check the producing area on the label are the victims.
Biluochun, Maofeng, and Maojian are also routinely counterfeited, but the price gap is usually smaller because the protected leaf costs less than West Lake Longjing.
The counter-counterfeit move is to buy from a producer who clearly prints the producing area, or to buy from a vendor who can trace the lot back to a specific garden.
About 70 percent of fraud complaints in the Chinese tea market involve either counterfeiting or grade mislabelling. The remaining 30 percent is split across scenting, colouring, and old-new substitution.
Scenting and colouring
Scenting and colouring are the second tier of fraud. Scenting adds jasmine or osmanthus flowers to green tea to mask a dull underlying aroma. The scent fades within six months, which is why scented teas are usually sold within weeks of scenting.
Colouring adds green pigment to tea that has yellowed in storage. The colouring is usually done with a food-grade dye that washes off in the first infusion. A coloured tea will turn the water slightly green or yellow.
Both scenting and colouring are less common in premium markets because they show up easily in a side-by-side test. They are more common in mid-grade retail where the buyer is not running the tea through a tasting protocol.
In a 2018 spot check of mid-grade Longjing in 5 retail channels, roughly 30 percent of the lots tested were from outside the protected area.
The simple test for both is to brew the tea and watch the first infusion. A coloured tea will tint the water. A scented tea will lose most of its aroma in two or three cups.
Mixing grades and regions
Mixing grades and regions is subtler. A premium lot is blended with a small amount of mid-grade leaf to stretch the volume. The cup difference is small because the premium character dominates, but the price was paid for 100 percent premium.
The opposite version is selling mid-grade leaf at premium price, claiming a higher grade than the tea actually carries. This is harder to catch because the cup quality is real, only the grade claim is wrong.
Mixing is not always fraud. Many legitimate producers blend teas from different gardens or different days of plucking to balance the cup. The fraud is when the mixing is not disclosed.
Asking the producer about the origin and the processing date is the cleanest move. A legitimate producer will tell you which garden, which day, and which processing run. A fraud will hedge.
The most common grade fraud is selling grade three as grade one, a two-grade jump. The cup difference is real but a typical consumer will not pick it up without a reference sample.
None of this is easy to settle from a label, and the reason is that blending itself is legal. What is not legal is describing a blend as a single-origin lot. A producer who answers the origin question plainly, and who can name the garden and the processing week within 7 days of the pick, is offering a claim that can actually be checked.
Selling old tea as new
Selling old tea as new is one of the easier frauds to run and one of the easier to catch. Green tea goes stale within six to twelve months, so an old tea sold as fresh is essentially a different product.
The trick the fraudsters use is to add scent or aroma to disguise the staleness. A jasmine-scented tea that is also old will smell bright but taste dull.
The reliable test is the cup, not the package. A fresh green tea has a vegetal, almost marine aroma in the first infusion. An old green tea has lost that aroma and may have developed a stale, papery note.
Storage conditions matter as much as age. A green tea kept in a sealed, refrigerated container can stay close to fresh for a year. Tea left on a warm shop shelf has lost half its character in three months.
Refrigerated storage can stretch a green tea’s prime window by two to three months. Without refrigeration, expect one to two months from purchase.