Organic Programme

An organic claim into the EU or the United States is a chain-of-custody claim, not a taste claim. It requires a certified garden, a certified processing site, segregated storage, a per-shipment import certificate — the electronic NOP Import Certificate for the United States, the electronic certificate of inspection (e-COI) in TRACES for the EU — and residue results that clear the destination's maximum residue limits. Organic availability, the certifying body and the certificate scope are confirmed against current records at quotation rather than inferred from a product name.

It follows the tea in the programme: the contract states the moisture figure for the line being certified, as it does for any bulk order.

0902.20 / 0902.40. Heading 0902 splits tea by fermentation and by packing size: immediate packings of 3 kg or less move green and white tea to 0902.10, and oolong and black tea to 0902.30.

United States, Japan, Russia. Seventh among China's tea export destinations by value in 2025. Value divided by volume gives about USD 6,347.6 per tonne, roughly 1.7 times China's export average.

Any tea — green, black, white, oolong, jasmine or matcha — can be organic. Organic is a certification of how the tea was grown and handled, not a type of tea, and it holds only when the garden, the processing and every handler up to the labelled pack are covered by a certificate valid for the destination. Matcha is not among the lines on this site.

The organic claim covers the tea inside. Filter paper, mesh and pouches are packaging, not organic ingredients, and they must still be suitable for food contact. The operation that packs and labels organic tea must itself be certified or covered by a certificate, so ask who packs, not only who grows.

Specify the grade code — 3505 or 41022, for example — exactly as for conventional tea, then add the organic scheme for the destination and ask for the certificate showing that grade's producer and processor in scope. Availability is confirmed per season and lot rather than assumed from the grade name.

Both halves of the tea have to be covered: the green tea base from certified gardens and processing, and the scenting, carried out by an operator inside the certificate's scope. Ask the certifier whether the jasmine blossom itself must be organic under your scheme, and confirm the answer in writing before the lot is scented.

Organic status does not change how a tea brews cold. Choose iced tea by the cup: black teas and many green and oolong teas cold-brew well. Test the tea cold before fixing the specification, then add the organic scheme as a separate requirement.

It depends who is asking. In Chinese, red tea — hongcha — is what English calls black tea; in much of Europe and in South Africa, red tea means rooibos, a caffeine-free herbal infusion from a different plant, Aspalathus linearis. An organic red tea enquiry has to say which it means; the lines on this site are all tea from Camellia sinensis.

Farmland certified under an organic scheme: no synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, soil and pests managed by approved methods, and records an inspector checks every year. Tea is a perennial crop, so under EU and US rules the land must be managed organically for three years before its harvest can be sold as organic. Processing, storage and packing must be certified too.

The mark shows the scheme — the EU organic leaf, the USDA Organic seal, the Organic JAS mark in Japan, China's organic product mark — and each is valid only in its own market. The pack must also identify the certifier: the EU logo appears with the control body's code number, and US labels name the certifying agent. Check the operator in the scheme's public database before relying on the mark.

A certificate covering the exact product and pack, a tea chosen for the brew method — pot, urn, iced or cold brew — pack sizes that suit the kitchen, lot coding for traceability, and label wording for the market. Whether a menu may say organic is set by local rules, so confirm it with the certifier.

It depends on the destination. The United States requires an electronic NOP Import Certificate for every organic shipment, generated by the exporter's certifier in the USDA Organic Integrity Database; the European Union uses an electronic certificate of inspection issued in TRACES. Neither replaces a residue test report.