YEING Love High Wangs / Wikipedia
Chagfee teahouse chain store in Shenzhen, China
A young Chinese woman accused a tea shop of adding mercury granules to her drink and filed a complaint with the police. The investigation found that the boyfriend was to blame.
A woman surnamed Zhang, from Anhui in central China, complained on social media that a store belonging to the popular tea house chain Chagee had spiked your drink with mercury.
Zhang, who said he felt “hard granules” in her tea with milk, filed a formal complaint with the police; the investigation cleared the store of any wrongdoing, and identified the real culprit: the young Chinese woman was poisoned by her own boyfriendsays .
According to Zhang, on April 27, she had a drink at a Chagee store, which her boyfriend had picked up for her at the counter. The first sips didn’t surprise him, but then he began to feel small hard granules that “They didn’t taste like tapioca bubbles“.
Zhang chewed them and noticed that they were extremely hard. He spat them out and saw little silver fragmentswhich he identified as mercury.
He contacted the store to file a complaint, but the employees responded that it was “impossible for this to happen in our production process” and suggested that should call the police. Zhang did so, and also reported the case to a local consumer protection association.
The Chinese woman shared the case on social media, attracting public attention to food safety issues — and, as usual, users started immediately spread the word and report the brand.
The store responded that it was taking the matter very seriously and would cooperate with the police and market regulators, who intervened the following day.
The results of the investigation caused huge surprise on social media.
On April 29, the team in charge of investigating the case announced that Chagee’s ingredients and procedures they were all safeand that the “foreign body” in the tea had been “introduced by the drink buyer himself“.
The team further detailed that the suspect had been detainedthe evidence collected, and that the case was under investigation. The statement did not mention names or the identity of the poisoner.
Even so, several users remembered Zhang’s initial report and were quick to conclude that this time he was not the butler: the boyfriend was to blame. “This is a attempted murder“, said one person. “Poor milk tea brand, the take the blame without any reason“, added another.
Zhang did not report any health problems, but mercury poisoning can be fatal in severe cases. Exposure to a mercury concentration greater than 1.2 mg per cubic meter is believed to be sufficient to cause acute poisoning.
Symptoms of acute mercury poisoning include damage to the respiratory and digestive systems, rashes, chest pain, fatigue and diarrhea. With regards to the chronic mercury poisoningsymptoms include neuropsychiatric disorders, tremors and kidney damage.
In the most serious cases, mercury can cause multiple organ failure, with fatal consequences.
That China, regardless of the consequencesthe introduction of mercury into food is punishable by Criminal Lawconstituting the crime of spreading dangerous substances.
Anyone who commits this crime risks a prison sentence of between three and ten years, when the consequences are not considered serious. Anyone who causes more serious damage may be sentenced to the death penalty.
