Investigation of Heavy Metal in Tea Prepared by Common Teapots in Riyadh

Contamination of tea by heavy metals has become an inevitable challenge these days. Thus, many countries have developed regulatory programs to determine the levels of metals in food. In this study, a total of 9 teapots samples were investigated using Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The survey has resulted in detection of some metals namely Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Al, Pb, Se, As Cd and Cr. Although the concentration of heavy metals was found to be lower than the maximum allowable limit of general food set by the World Health Organization (WHO).however, teapots that were made from metals exhibit the higher concentration of iron released from teapots among the other types of teapots. In contrast, iron released from teapots has not been observed in teapots made from glass.