An old Chinese friend of mine tells me quite regularly that he has three vices in life. They are his beloved cigarettes, his baijiu and his tea. If the first two don't kill him, perhaps the third might allow him to live to a ripe old age.

And I suppose - if push came to shove - he could live without the first two. But like most Chinese, there's no way he could live without tea. To a Chinese, tea is the nectar of life. One could say it is China.

The bus driver without a bottle of the stuff sloshing on the floorboard next to him isn't a real driver. Your colleague at the desk next wouldn't get her work done without her jar. A farmer-turned-construction worker has to have his tea or he'd never be able to last through the long hours on the job site.

So Chinese people everywhere must feel betrayed by their countrymen in Guizhou Province who decided that the nation's sacred drink was worth sullying. Farmers or merchants, apparently motivated by greed, decided to use toxic chemicals to turn low-quality tea leaves into "green" Biluochun tea leaves.

According to a report aired on China Central Television (CCTV), food safety authorities seized 700 kilogrammes of bogus tea leaves dyed with toxic chemicals used to restore bad tea to "fresh". The leaves were laden with heavy metals like lead, containing more than 60 times the amount allowed by the national standard, enough to cause anyone imbibing the tea to suffer irreversible damage to the liver and kidneys.

As a famous and sought-after tea, the output of Biluochun tea leaves is quite limited each year, according to tea aficionados. Many customers cannot tell the difference between authentic Biluochun tea and the dyed fake tea, which apparently motivated the greedy producers because of the high prices the tea can fetch - about 500 yuan (US$60.25) per kilogramme. The counterfeit tea costs just 75 yuan (US$9) to grow and dye, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Some of the nation's tea merchants are quite worried that real Biluochun sales will be harmed this year because of the toxic tea outcry hitting the marketplace. Those who worked hard to grow their tea and played by the rules are trying to spread the word that they believe the bad tea has been discovered and stopped from entering shops in major cities. They explain that Biluochun tea can be authenticated by examining its leaves, which have tiny white hairs on them, while the fake tea leaves have little green hairs.

Now, ask yourself about this whole imbroglio. Was this simply some producers trying to get the best bargain or price for their goods, like farmers trying to cheat a little on the weight of their lettuce in the back of their trucks by placing a sandbag or two in the lot? Or, a store clerk pressing the edge of the scale with his finger when he's selling you a chicken at the supermarket?

Not even close. This was an ethical and moral business failure. It was doctoring a product, and falsely changing it in a way that deceives consumers. It is nothing short of what producers of defective milk powder did last year when they made and then sold the powder to impoverished and under-educated mothers who trusted the product as a source of nutrition for their children. That powder was fed to hundreds of Chinese babies, and many were harmed. Thirteen infants died in the tragedy.

Thankfully no one yet has been killed by this poisoned tea, in part due to aggressive action by authorities. The Shanghai Tea Trade Association called on its 46 member firms to keep a close watch for any fake tea in the marketplace after the media reports.

Tea sustains this country. To make certain this does not happen again, appropriate criminal charges should be filed against the tea producers responsible for this debacle. If found guilty, those who chose to poison the nation's lifeblood should be condemned to drink the tea they had planned to sell to others.