Tea is a non-alcoholic beverage popular among Chinese people. However, due to the application of chemical and organic fertilizers in the tea planting process, the environment pollutionaround the tea plantation, and the instruments used in the processing, heavy metal elements will accumulate in the tea, which brings health risks for tea consumers. This study summarized heavy metal concentrations from 227 published papers and investigated the current contamination status of tea and tea plantation soils, and, finally, the risk of heavy metal exposure to tea consumers in China is assessed, in terms of both non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk. The average contamination of six heavy metals in tea-arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb)-were 0.21, 0.14, 1.17, 14.6, 0.04, and 1.09 mg/kg, respectively. The areas with high concentrations of heavy metals in tea were concentrated primarily in southwest China, some areas in eastern China, and Shaanxi Province in northwest China. The non-carcinogenic risks of heavy metals in tea are all within safe limits. The national average HI value was 0.04, with the highest HI value of 0.18 in Tibet, which has the largest tea consumption in China. However, the carcinogenic risks of Cd in Shaanxi Province, Anhui Province, and southwest China exceed the acceptable range, and due attention should be given to these areas.
Keywords: carcinogenic; drinking tea; exposure; non-carcinogenic; tea plantation soils.