Abstract:Using black teas at home and abroad as materials, inductively coupled plasma mass spectro-meter (ICP-MS) method was adopted to determine the content of (Cu), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd) and 16 rare-earth elements (counted by total amount of oxides ∑ReOs). And on this base we evaluated the safety of the heavy metal according to national and industrial standards including “Green Food Tea, Organic Tea and Maximum Levels of Contaminants in Foods”. The result showed that content of Pb in all samples was lower than 5μg/g which met the limitation of national standard about Pb in teas. According to organic tea, one sample did not meet this standard about Pb content and three samples did not meet this standard about Cu content. According to green food tea, three samples did not meet this standard about heavy metal content. According to NY 659—2003 “Residue Limits for Chromium, Cadmium, Mercury, Arsenic and Fluoride in tea”, Cr content in two samples was beyond this standard. Result of rare-earth metal showed that ∑ReOs in 10 samples were out of range of 2mg/kg. On the whole, the pass rate of tea samples about heavy metal was 72.97%.