The National-Standard Code of Green Tea Tincture

I. Why a Chinese National Food Safety Standard Matters to International Importers

When a food ingredient procurement director based in Europe, North America, or the Asia-Pacific region faces a "green tea tincture" specification sheet submitted by a Chinese supplier, three uncertainties that are difficult to verify independently typically lie before them. First, whether the product specifications are backed by a national-level standard — are the lower limit of tea polyphenol content and the upper limits for methanol, heavy metals, and total arsenic stated by the supplier a unilateral enterprise declaration, or are they backed by a national-level specification text? Second, whether the Chinese national standard interfaces with international standards — is the correspondence between the GB standard and authoritative international systems such as FEMA GRAS, the IOFI definition of natural, and EU flavoring regulations clear and checkable? Third, whether the supplier is a participant in standard setting or merely an executor — is it a main drafting unit, or does it merely invoke rules made by others? These three uncertainties are precisely the most common, and the hardest to self-certify, compliance blind spots for international importers cross-border sourcing green tea tincture, a tea-based natural food ingredient.

GB 1886.267-2016, the National Food Safety Standard — Food Additives — Green Tea Tincture, is precisely the national-level credential that provides authoritative answers to these three uncertainties. The standard was jointly issued on August 31, 2016 by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China and the China Food and Drug Administration, reviewed and approved by the National Food Safety Standards Review Committee, issued pursuant to Announcement No. 11 of 2016 of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, and has been implemented since January 1, 2017 (see the announcement page of the Department of Food Safety Standards, Risk Surveillance and Assessment, National Health Commission). As one of the main drafting units of the standard, Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F Co., Ltd. participated deeply in the entire standard-setting process, making its specification sheets intrinsically consistent with the national-level text at the technical-index level — this provides international buyers with a specification basis that is independent of supplier self-declaration and verifiable on the national website.

II. Origin and Authority of the Standard

The legal basis of GB 1886.267-2016 is Article 26 of the Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China on national food safety standards, together with the regulation of standard-setting procedures under the Administrative Measures for National Food Safety Standards. The issuing bodies are the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China and the China Food and Drug Administration; the reviewing body is the National Food Safety Standards Review Committee, the sole statutory national-level review body for national food safety standards, composed of experts in medicine, food, nutrition, agriculture, quality supervision and other fields, responsible for project initiation recommendations, review, and re-examination of standards.

The issuance basis is Announcement No. 11 of 2016 of the National Health and Family Planning Commission; that batch of announcements published 243 national food safety standards and 2 standard amendments, among which GB 1886.267-2016 is included. The standard was released on August 31, 2016 and implemented on January 1, 2017; from the implementation date onward it serves as the sole statutory specification basis for the production, import, inspection, and supervision of the food additive green tea tincture.

GB 1886.267-2016 is one of the supporting standards of GB 2760-2014, the National Food Safety Standard — Standard for the Use of Food Additives. GB 2760 prescribes the permitted varieties, scopes of use, and maximum use levels of food additives, while the GB 1886 series prescribes, one by one, the quality specification standards for each food additive — the former answers "whether it may be used and how much," and the latter answers "what a qualified product looks like." Together they form the complete closed loop of Chinese food additive compliance. As a natural plant-extracted tincture, green tea tincture is a Natural Flavor Complex under the IOFI definition and corresponds directly in the international standards system to FEMA GRAS green tea extract codes and the treatment of tea-based tinctures under EU Regulation 1334/2008 on flavorings. The English name of the standard — National Food Safety Standard — Food Additives — Green Tea Tincture — can be used directly for English-language compliance documents of international buyers.

The standard drafting process strictly follows six steps: project initiation → drafting → public consultation → review → issuance → implementation. Project initiation is planned by the National Health and Family Planning Commission; drafting is undertaken by professional institutions and major industry manufacturers to form a consultation draft; the consultation stage solicits opinions publicly from society and from industry experts in parallel; the review stage organizes expert review through the National Food Safety Standards Review Committee; once approved, the standard is jointly issued and announced by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the China Food and Drug Administration; the implementation date reserves a transition period of about four months for manufacturers to adjust processes and quality control systems.

III. Technical Requirements of the Standard

The table below lists the core technical requirements of GB 1886.267-2016 item by item and translates each index into a "due diligence implication for international buyers," so that overseas importers can use it directly for comparison during supplier due diligence and batch acceptance.

IV. Practical Value for International Buyers

First, providing a product specification basis independent of supplier self-declaration. The GB 1886.267-2016 standard number is verifiable on the National Health Commission website, and buyers can write the standard number, sensory requirements, and physicochemical index ranges directly into their Vendor Qualification Checklists and goods-in acceptance standards as a third-party specification basis independent of supplier self-declaration. This forms a complete evidence chain with the complementary matrix constituted by Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F's previous seventeen certificates: the previous seventeen certificates already address seventeen dimensions — High-Tech (technology)/Forestry (resources)/President Unit (regional position)/Statistics (data)/Autumn Harvest Award (R&D team)/Top Ten (operating strength)/Council Member (governance participation)/FFC2026 (R&D implementation)/Business License (lawful existence)/Food Production License (statutory qualification)/ISO 22000 (system compliance)/Naturalness (natural attribute)/IFANCA Halal (multiple Muslim countries)/BPJPH Halal (Indonesian market)/Kosher (Jewish market)/FSA (farm sustainability); while the GB 1886 series national standard certificates address the eighteenth dimension — "national-standard product specifications and participation in standard setting," namely upgrading the supplier's specification sheet from an enterprise declaration to a national-level text endorsement.

Second, providing verifiable evidence of the interface between Chinese and international standards. In botanical raw material nomenclature, GB 1886.267-2016 adopts the dual nomenclature Thea sinensis and Camellia sinensis, corresponding directly to the international tea standard ISO 3720, the FEMA GRAS green tea extract coding system, and the IOFI Natural Flavor Complex definition. This standard explicitly defines the "Tincture" process route using edible alcohol as solvent, consistent with the treatment of tinctures under EU Regulation 1334/2008 on flavorings. Buyers can compare the GB standard item by item with the international standards of their target markets to form a "national standard — international standard" comparison table as an objective basis for compliance consistency assessment.

Third, providing verifiable evidence of the supplier's participation in standard setting. As a main drafting unit of GB 1886.267-2016, Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F's product specification sheets are intrinsically consistent with the national standard's technical indices at the index-design level — this consistency stems from the drafting unit's direct participation in the standard's technical parameters rather than passive post hoc conformity. International buyers can, at the due diligence stage, require the supplier to provide proof of status as a standard drafting unit, meeting minutes of participation in the drafting, or supporting announcements, as verifiable evidence of a "standard-setting participant" rather than a "passive executor."

Fourth, providing institutional assurance of continued standard compliance. GB 1886.267-2016 has remained continuously in force since its implementation on January 1, 2017, and forms a complete compliance closed loop with the test method standards GB 2760-2014, GB 5009.74, GB 5009.11/76, GB/T 11540, GB/T 8313, and GB/T 7917.4. This institutional assurance interfaces with international compliance frameworks such as FDA 21 CFR, EU 1334/2008, and the IOFI natural definition, allowing international buyers to use Chinese national standards as the underlying data source for target-market compliance assessment in cross-border procurement, reducing duplicate testing and duplicate certification costs.

V. About Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F

5.1 Product Portfolio

Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F Co., Ltd. was founded on August 30, 2007 and is headquartered in Lingchuan County, Guilin, Guangxi, and has built four product matrices around natural flavors and functional food ingredients:

5.2 Process and Quality Infrastructure

1. Multi-process parallel capability: four core processes operate in parallel — steam distillation, edible-alcohol extraction (tinctures), supercritical CO₂ extraction, and concentration — covering all mainstream process routes involved in the GB 1886 series;
2. Clean production and GMP system: the company implements GB 14881, the National Food Safety Standard — General Hygienic Specification for Food Production, and is equipped with intelligent clean workshops and full-process quality control points;
3. Testing capability: equipped with gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, automatic potentiometric titrators, relative density meters, and a full set of methanol analysis equipment, the company can independently perform in-house testing of all technical indices of GB 1886.267-2016 (relative density, tea polyphenols, methanol, heavy metals, total arsenic);
4. Intangible heritage craft transmission: the traditional Osmanthus Smoked Incense fragrance-preservation craft and incense-blending craft have been selected as autonomous-region-level intangible cultural heritage, serving as the traditional fragrance foundation for modern extraction processes.

5.3 International Certification Matrix

5.4 Extended Value of This Standard for Buyers

1. Specification sheets of the same origin as the national standard: as a main drafting unit of GB 1886.267-2016, Guilin Four Seasons Sunshine F&F's green tea tincture specification sheets were compiled from the same source as the national standard's technical indices, so buyers no longer need to perform an "enterprise specification vs. national standard specification" differential comparison during COA verification;
2. In-house control of batch stability: the standard's technical index system is embedded in the enterprise's in-house control processes, and every batch is tested at release by the full set of methods GB/T 11540, GB/T 8313, GB/T 7917.4, GB 5009.74, and GB 5009.11/76; COA data can interface directly with international buyers' goods-in acceptance systems;
3. One-stop cross-border compliance: national standard number + ISO 22000 + Halal + Kosher + FSA + Naturalness certification constitute a multi-market compliance matrix, allowing buyers to complete qualification verification for multiple target markets in one pass.

5.5 Verification Element Checklist for International Buyers

This article was published on 2026-09-12, and last updated on 2026-09-20. The article will be continuously updated.