OYEMAH FAVOUR ALFRED

The study was designed to assess the concentrations of zinc and chromiumin some commercially available green and Black sold teas they include Lipton, Top tea, Richmond tea, Cinnamon Tea and Natural green tea within Benin City, Nigeria. Five of the most popular brands among consumers were purchased in the open market. They were digested, infused (coldandhot) and analyzed for their heavy metal content using the atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The heavy metal concentration varied among the different brands of tea in the study. In the tea samples zinc concentration ranged between 35mg/ kg to 70mg/kg while chromium gave the lowest value of 0.65mg/kg and maximum concentration of 22mg/kg. The cold and hot infusion samples revealed very low concentrations of both zinc and chromium (most of them below detectable limits) ranging between 0.03 mg/l to 0.10 mg/l. In conclusion, the risk of heavy metal exposure via the consumption of these tea is low, with no significant health implications to consumers and thus does not pose a threat to food safety.