Tea Importation Act of 1897
Tea Importation Act of 1897 was a United States public law forbidding the import of tea into the United States with excessive levels of fluoride, heavy metals, oxalate, and pesticides. The Act of Congress established a uniform standard of purity and quality while attempting to achieve the optimal health effects of tea and phenolic content in tea. The statute declared it unlawful to import into the United States "any merchandise as tea which is inferior in purity, quality, and fitness for consumption to the standards kept at customhouses..." For nearly a century, Congress provided that no imported tea could enter the United States unless federal tea-tasters decided that it measured up to preselected standard samples. The law restricted the International trade of camellia sinensis.
The 1897 statute superseded the Spurious Tea Importation Act of 1883.
The act was on the books for 99 years before its repeal in 1996. After repeal, the Food and Drug Administration still regulates the quality of tea imported to the United States under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.
Provisions of the Act
The United States statute had twelve sections and authorized the United States Secretary of the Treasury to implement the law.As codified just before its repeal, the Act instructed the Secretary of Health and Human Services each year "to appoint a board, to consist of seven members, each of whom shall be an expert in teas, and who shall prepare and submit to him standard samples of tea." In accordance with the board of experts' recommendations, the Secretary was instructed to "fix and establish uniform standards of purity, quality, and fitness for consumption of all kinds of teas imported unto the United States" and to deposit samples of these standards in the customhouses of various ports of entry. Tea importers were required to submit samples of their product for comparison with the standard samples kept at the customhouses. The imported samples were then tested "by a duly qualified examiner," who would test "the purity, quality, and fitness for consumption of the... according to the usages and customs of the tea trade, including the testing of an infusion of the same in boiling water and, if necessary, chemical analysis."