đ° The Swindle That Left Tea With a Bitter Taste đ§”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyg59yn10mo
How did a fake Scottish tea plantation fool the finest hotels?
#Botany #PlantScience đ§Ș #InBrief (1/11)
#PlantScience from #CellBiology to #Ecosystems, or what we call #Botany. Weblog of the Annals of Botany Company, a charity dedicated to promoting the study of #plants.
đ° The Swindle That Left Tea With a Bitter Taste đ§”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyg59yn10mo
How did a fake Scottish tea plantation fool the finest hotels?
#Botany #PlantScience đ§Ș #InBrief (1/11)
You can read this post on one page at https://wp.me/pdRZhH-m4v
Using this technique they showed that genetic tools (DNA barcoding using rbcL and matK genes) could successfully extract DNA from 90% of commercial tea products. They found that around a third of herbal teas generated DNA identifications not found on labels.(7/11)
More recently, the tools for detecting tea fraud have improved further. Reyrolle et al. have combined multi-element signatures, strontium isotope ratios & volatile compounds for the first time - successfully discriminating 10 out of 11 tea regions, tightening the noose on tea fraud.(10/11)
Itâs difficult to identify tea just by looking at it. This is a problem for tea where supply chains are complex, particularly when you sell blends of tea rather than single-origin stock. Stoeckle et al used DNA barcoding, looking for standardised sequences of DNA to identify what was in âteaâ.(6/11)
These trace metals are absorbed from specific geology. Together isotopes & trace elements create a unique "chemical passport" for a growing region. Their success rate was over 87%. In the future any âScottish teaâ could be compared against known samples to confirm authenticity. (9/11)
The jury at Thomas Robinsonâs trial has found him guilty of fraud for a total of over ÂŁ550,000 (750,000 USD). Sentencing is due to take place next month. If heâs looking for a lighter sentence, he may want to consider offering something to the Iron Goddess of Mercy.(11/11)
But that only identifies the biological material, can you also identify where it grew? Liu et al measured stable isotope ratios looking for variations in elements like carbon/nitrogen that reflect local climate & soil. They then added multi-element analysis detecting trace metals. (8/11)
At least, the plantation certainly seemed successful, with clients including Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel and the Dorchester in London. There was no shortage of tea to supply - but thatâs because Robinson was buying tea from overseas, and selling it at up to 100 times the cost as Scottish tea. (3/11)
The story revolves around âThe Wee Tea Plantationâ, supposedly a tea plantation in Perthshire that sold single-estate tea. This might seem unlikely, but there is a fledgling Scottish tea industry. But Thomas Robinson seemed to be extraordinarily successful. (2/11)
When a buyer from Fortnum & Masonâs came to inspect the plantation, he bought tea plants to create an illusion of success. The deception by the âpolymer scientistâ & âformer bomb disposal expertâ fell apart when he claimed to have won awards that no one else had heard of. (4/11)
This case highlights the problem of provenancing tea. How do you know your tea is Scottish, or Chinese or anything else? There is a premium to be paid for tea from the right regions, and so thereâs also an incentive by unscrupulous people to bulk out, or mislabel tea too.(5/11)
đ How do plants respond to hormone signals instead of cellular noise? đ§”
https://doi.org/g9k3kf
You might expect the instructions a cell receives to make a flower to be precise, but the response to those instructions isnât.
#Botany #PlantScience đ§Ș #InBrief (1/11)
âI really thought by the time we got to these four [sepal forming] regions, there would be a lot less randomness â but thereâs not,â said lab leader, Adrienne Roeder in a press release. âSomehow, despite the noise, you still get these very clear patches where sepal organs initiate.â (7/11)
âUltimately, the research challenges the idea that biological precision requires perfect control,â says Roeder. âInstead, it shows that nature doesnât eliminate randomness â it builds reliable systems and processes that work despite it.â (9/11)
Sepals are the sturdy green leaf-like organs at the base of the bud that protect the emerging flower. Even though the cells are individually ânoisyâ and unpredictable, the plant repeatedly produces four protective sepals in a perfect pattern. (6/11)
Kong, S., Rusnak, B., Zhu, M. and Roeder, A.H.K. (2025) âStochastic gene expression in auxin signaling in the floral meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana,â Nature Communications, 16(1), p. 4682. https://doi.org/g9k3kf (11/11)
The key is a process called 'spatial averaging.' While any individual cell may be doing its own things in response to the hormone, overall groups of cells work together to smooth out the noise. It allows the plant to use randomness when it wants to and ignore it when it doesnât, says Roeder. (8/11)
The cover image shows flower buds forming from the stem cells of Arabidopsis thaliana. Image credit: Shuyao Kong.
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The team arenât just interested in what the plant does well, they also want to know how and why the process breaks down. This could be useful in processes way beyond plants like, for example, cancer, where random gene activity can drive tumor evolution. (10/11)