China has thousands of genuine tea factories and a much larger number of trading offices that will happily call themselves one.
Published 2026-10-09 · 8 min read
China has thousands of genuine tea factories and a much larger number of trading offices that will happily call themselves one. The difference shows up in what they can produce on paper before any money moves.
Any company in China that legally processes food must hold a Food Production Licence — the SC number. A supplier that exports processed tea without one is operating outside the rules, and that is not a supplier you want standing behind your label.
The SC number is verifiable. Ask for the licence image, then check the company against the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统). What you are looking for is whether the registered business scope actually includes tea production and processing — or only sales and trading.
| Signal | Factory | Trading company |
|---|---|---|
| Business scope | Production, processing | Sales, trading, import-export |
| Location | In or near tea-growing counties | In major trade cities |
| Equipment | Can show withering troughs, rolling and drying lines | Cannot show machinery |
| Certifications | Held by the producer itself | May hold none; refers to a partner |
| MOQ and lead time | Set by its own capacity | Depends on a third party |
| Customisation | Can change blend, format, processing | Relays the request |
Being a trading company is not dishonest on its own — plenty of good exporters are traders. The problem is when a trader presents itself as the producer, because then nobody in the chain actually controls the process you are paying for.
| Document | What it proves | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| SC Food Production Licence | The facility is legally allowed to process food | Verify the number on the public credit system |
| Export food producer filing | The plant is registered to export | Match the filing number to the company name |
| Third-party residue report | A named laboratory tested a specific batch | Check the lab's accreditation and the batch number |
| Organic certificate | A certification body certified the operation | Search the certificate number on the certifier's database |
A certificate is only worth what its verifiability is worth. Every one of the four above can be checked against an independent database — which is exactly why they are the ones to ask for.
Collecting a folder of PDFs proves nothing. What separates a routine supplier from a careful one is whether the identifiers line up across documents.
None of these is conclusive alone. Two or three together, on a large first order, is enough to look elsewhere.
Our sourcing is structured so the production side is a named, licensed facility — not an anonymous supplier. The certificates we can share (China Organic, USDA NOP, SGS batch reports, export filing) are held by that facility and are checkable against the issuing body's database.
We do not name that facility in public material; if you are a buyer with a live order we will share the details under the commercial discussion. What we will always do is give you a certificate number you can check yourself.
The strongest version of this check is a visit. If a first order is large enough to justify it, come and see the gardens and the processing floor.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Regulations change; always check the current text on the official EU or US source before you ship.
Four are worth asking for: the SC food production licence, the export food producer filing, a third-party residue report for the specific batch, and the organic certificate if organic is claimed. Each can be checked against an independent database.
Ask who controls the processing. A producer sets its own MOQ, lead time and blend; a trader depends on a third party and can only relay changes. Being a trader is not dishonest. Presenting a trader as the producer is the problem.
The three-way match: the batch number on the test report, the packing list and the commercial invoice should be the same number and refer to the same lot. When they differ, the report usually belongs to a different batch of tea.
Tell us your market and the grade you are looking at, and we will send the certificates and a current batch report to check.
Get Price & Samples WhatsApp