Controversy over the sugar content of sweetened tea beverages, popular among Taiwanese, is heating up again after recent tests revealed that a number of companies are using “high-fructose corn syrup” and “inverted sugar syrup” instead of cane sugar, as advertised.
Common Health Magazine conducted the test by purchasing tea beverages at three stores from each of the nation’s six leading tea beverage chains and sending them for analysis at certified testing service laboratories.
“All the tested beverages were excessively sweet, over the normal healthy level,” magazine editor-in-chief Lee Se (李瑟) said.
“The Jade Lemon Green Tea from King Tea (清玉) stores had the highest sugar content. One large cup contains 74.5g of sugar, equal to 15 sugar cubes. This is 1.7 times over the daily recommended amount per person of 45g, or 9 sugar cubes,” she added.
Other beverages tested were 50 Lan (50嵐), Tea Top (台灣第一味), Orange Tea (橘子工坊), Chatime (日出茶太) and Tea Plus (水巷茶弄), all of which had sugar content of 9 to 10 percent, she said.
Most of the stores’ advertising stated they only use the “natural ingredients” of cane sugar and lemon, but tests revealed 50 Lan and Tea Top stores used “inverted sugar syrup” — a commercial sweetener made by converting a sucrose solution to glucose and fructose with the catalytic aid of enzymes or the addition of an acid, she said.
Chatime store utilized a mixture consisting of high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar, she said, adding only Orange Tea, Tea Plus and King Tea used cane sugar as advertised.
Wu Ying-jung (吳映蓉), chief executive officer of the Nutrition Foundation of Taiwan said that for these tea drinks, the higher the lemon juice content, the more sugar is needed to reduce and balance out its acidic sour flavor.
“That is how the King Tea’s claim of ‘golden ratio’ was achieved, by hiking up both its sweetness and lemon sourness levels,” Wu said.
“But no matter if the sweetening is done by cane sugar, pure fructose, or high-fructose corn syrup, too much of it will lead to obesity, fat deposits on the liver and other organs, and high uric acid content leading to hyperuricemia diseases.
In response, Hsu Ya-ting (許亞婷), public relations officer at King Tea, said on Friday that the Jade Lemon Green Tea with its “golden ratio” is a tried and tested formula by the company’s technical team, and that each consumers can choose their own “golden ratio,” by requesting “no sugar,” “half sugar,” or “full sugar” levels.
A spokesperson for Tea Top, meanwhile, said the sugar solution used by its stores was made from ingredients consisting of water, with Taisugar Company’s special granulated white sugar and liquid sugar. Taisugar’s liquid sugar product has its basic content as sucrose, fructose, glucose, with water, and thus consumers need not worry about chemical additives, the spokesperson said.
50 Lan’s parent company responded through a statement, saying its stores changed from fructose to sucrose in May, as Taisugar officials recommended using their liquid sugar product, which was thought to be made of natural cane sugar. Its stores took down its advertising from Aug. 29, so as not to mislead consumers, it added.
Wu Shu-ping (吳書平), marketing manager of La Kaffa Group, the parent company of Chatime, said fructose was indeed added for sweetening, but added that their advertising did not claim the use of 100 percent cane sugar.
“The reporting by Common Health Magazine is wrong to suggest that Chatime is misleading the public. We have contacted the magazine, and requested them to make the correction,” he said.
Additional reporting by Huang Wen-huang
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai