Tea cigarette: newly emerging smoking product in China

Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death, with more than 8 million deaths yearly worldwide. [1] Tea cigarettes, a type of smoking product promoted as helping people who smoke cigarettes quit and escape nicotine addiction, are gaining increasing popularity on the Chinese market in recent years. Compared to traditional combustible commercial tobacco cigarettes, tea cigarettes replace tobacco with tea leaves. After being lit, the tea releases smoke. Tea cigarette use is often called “smoking tea” or “drinking cigarettes”. In January 2020, online sales of tea cigarettes in China reached 48.25 million Chinese Yuan (~ US $7 million), an increase of 143% compared to February 2019. [2] The level of offline sales of tea cigarettes remains unknown.

Tea cigarettes in China usually contain tea, chrysanthemum, and honey. Chrysanthemum tea as a beverage has many health benefits with diverse biological activities such as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. [3] [4] Many tea varieties exist in China, such as Pu’er, Golden Bud, Tie Guan Yin, Jasmine, and Longjing. Therefore, many tea cigarettes are branded based on the tea name. To attract more users and mask the unpleasant taste of burned tea, tea cigarettes feature different flavors, including but not limited to mint, menthol, eaglewood, dried orange peel, dendrobium, loquat, blueberry, cherry, rose, citrus, and strawberry. To distinguish the product from traditional tobacco cigarettes, tea cigarettes are often promoted as “nicotine-free” or “non-tobacco products,” using claims that “smoking tea is good for quitting”. One pack (20 sticks) of tea cigarettes costs 20–100 Chinese Yuan (US $3 - $14).

As the second most popular beverage globally, tea contains caffeine, tea polyphenols, amino acids, and vitamins, which are associated with low mortality risk. [5] Polyphenolic compounds present in tea have beneficial effects in preventing cardiovascular diseases. [6] [7] However, after the tea is burned, most of the beneficial chemicals in tea are decomposed or denatured. Burning releases carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, inhalable particulate matter, and other unknown toxic substances, which can be harmful when inhaled. [8] While tea cigarettes are promoted to help with quitting smoking, one study showed that people who smoke tobacco and received tea cigarettes as a gift were less likely to quit smoking than those who smoke tobacco but did not receive tea cigarettes as a gift. [9] Since the natural nicotine content in tea is extremely minimal, the role of tea cigarettes in smoking cessation might be limited because most people who smoke are addicted to nicotine. The health effects of smoking tea cigarettes and their role in smoking cessation remain to be investigated.

Considering the major ingredient for tea cigarettes is tea, they fall outside the scope of current tobacco regulations. Although the level of endogenous nicotine in tea is extremely low, [10] the mixture of external nicotine and tea leaves (such as “Teabacco”) can make it addictive, [11] which should deserve careful regulation. There is, to our knowledge, no existing regulation of the production and sales of tea cigarettes in any country, including China. [12] However, since the labeling and packaging of some tea cigarette products are the same or similar to some name brands of tobacco cigarettes on the market, the sale of these tea cigarette products is considered illegal and prohibited in China (not for health reasons, but because they infringe on the rights of tobacco cigarette brands). Despite the lack of scientific evidence supporting the notion that tea cigarettes can help with smoking cessation, they are frequently promoted as aids for quitting smoking, which could mislead consumers. Therefore, while it remains unclear how tea cigarettes should be regulated, at minimum there is an immediate need to prohibit the misleading marketing of tea cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid.

While tea cigarettes have been used in countries like China and Vietnam for decades, they were introduced into the American online market by the company Billy55 (American Billy) in 2015. [13] The prevalence of tea cigarette use in the US remains unknown. Surveys should monitor the prevalence of tea cigarette use (including in China and the US). There is an urgent need to conduct scientific research on these products’ toxicity and potential role in smoking cessation, to provide comprehensive evidence for policymakers to facilitate effective regulation of tea cigarettes.

Data availability statement:

Data are available upon reasonable request through the corresponding author.