A popular bubble tea chain received 11 infractions from city health inspectors on Tuesday.
Ten Ren’s Tea Time in Yorkdale Shopping Centre is one of 10 of the shop’s locations across the GTA, along with its more than 2,000 stores in North America and Asia, making it the largest tea manufacturer in the Far East.
It’s known for both its takeout and dine-in options, where customers can get either teas or tea-based drinks from tea lattes, fruit teas, milk teas and more, as well as snacks.
It received a conditional pass notice due to 11 infractions — two crucial, five significant and three minor and one in the “other” category — and remains open to the public, according to Toronto Public Health.
In its first inspection in July 2023, it received a conditional pass but Ten Ren’s passed a week later.
This time, its two crucial infractions were storing ice in an unsanitary manner, and failing to ensure a food handler in the store washes their hands as necessary to prevent contamination of food.
Ten Ren’s five significant violations are failing to maintain hand-washing stations with soap and paper towels as well as the hand-washing station being used for something other than for the hand-washing of employees.
Its food equipment was not of sound and tight construction, utensils were not being sanitized in the proper chlorine solution of less than 100 p.p.m. (parts per million), and the store also failed to protect against the harbouring of pests.
The tea shop’s three minor infractions are that the floors of the food-handling room were not clean while the room itself was not maintained in sanitary condition.
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It also failed to ensure that its equipment surfaces were sanitized as necessary.
As for the “other” infraction, a food handler or supervisor was not present during all hours of operation.
A detailed list of infractions at Toronto restaurants can be found on DineSafe.