The Hindu : Front Page : Tea for tots too

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Sunday, Aug 08, 2010
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Tea for tots too

Special Correspondent

Kolkata: No longer need a cup of tea be a forbidden drink for a child. As several studies have begun establishing the beneficial aspects of drinking not only green tea, but black tea as well, the beverage has also been found to be fit for children. Talking to the press after the seventh workshop on tea and health organised by the National Tea Research Foundation (NTRF), Chairman of the Tea Board of India Basudeb Banerjee said that while it has long been held that the presence of caffeine in tea made the drink unfit to be a children's beverage, the caffeine content in colas was far more than that in tea.

“Tea cannot replace milk but it is a far more natural beverage as compared to an artificial drink, and worldwide efforts are on to establish it as a wellness beverage,” he said. The NTRF, an interactive research body set up by the Union Commerce Ministry and the Tea Board, gets financial support from the industry with matching grants from the National Bank of Agriculture & Rural Development (Nabard).

Mr. Banerjee said that it had been proved beyond all doubt that tea was good for health and people needed to be encouraged to drink at least three cups daily. He, however, pointed out that tea with milk dilutes the antioxidant properties of the beverage to the extent of nearly 50 per cent.

A study by E. Padmini of Chennai University showed that tea with a concentration of at least 2 per cent and 1.5 per cent mint was adequate to enhance the inbuilt antioxidant potential of the beverage.

The Tea Board chairman said that some of tea's aspects pointed to pharmaceutical applications. Its beneficial properties could be packed in a pill when it was not convenient to make the brew. In the case of tea bags, the water in which it is dipped had to be of the right temperature to release the chemicals.

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