Found this blog entry today from Steph’s Cup of Tea about tea drinking and pregnancy. Seems Steph received a question from a serious coffee drinker wanting to switch to tea because she is now pregnant. She needs to kick her coffee habit because of too much caffeine. I wonder why she just doesn’t drink decaffeinated coffee if she is such a great coffee drinker?
However, Steph gave her some good advice starting with trying rooibos and herbal teas. Not exactly real teas but they would be caffeine free.
Then Steph gives a double steep method to reduce the caffeine in real teas. Seems the mom-to-be does want a bit of caffeine. If she was a serious coffee drinker, she probably would want something to keep getting a bit of caffeine. The double steep method is a great idea to lessen the amount an caffeine and you can read Steph’s post to get the reasoning and method.
Finally she ends up suggesting decaf teas but has some cautions.
Source: http://stephcupoftea.blogspot.com/2008/10/tea-and-pregnancy.html
Filed under Tea by on Oct 7th, 2008. 
A long title that one but it succinctly states what this post is about. Premier’s Tea has brought their teas to Europe and Japan and has now turned its eyes to the North American markets. Planning to use different marketing campaigns, they hope to educate and inform consumers, retail chains and boutique stores in an effort to spread through viral methods throughout the continent. Premier’s Tea will promote the antioxidant and other healthful properties of tea.
They also seek to educate us all about buying truly pure teas. For instance, our source quotes Hasmukh A. Shah, who is the chairman of the company that India only produces about 8.5 million kilos of Darjeeling tea yearly. However, supposedly there are about 33 million kilos on the world markets. Obviously, not real Darjeeling tea as it is not coming from the Darjeeling region of India though it may be a Darjeeling type tea grown in other places. Because of this, Shah further states that the Indian government has started to promote branded Indian tea.
Looks like for this roll out in North America, Premier’s Tea is starting in Canada where tea is presently reaching a $1 billion market in consumers. Over the last ten years, that represents a 73% hike in tea imports meaning Canadians are turning to tea.
At any rate, rather than wait for the 40 different flavors of tea to reach your local store, you can get your Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri and flavored teas at their new website – Premier’s Tea. Or at least you can sometime this winter. Right now, you can only read about the products they will be offering.
Source: http://www.southasianfocus.ca/community/article/58045
Filed under Tea by on Oct 10th, 2008.
An article by Stuart Elliott in the New York Times talks about a new marketing campaign by Salada Green Tea urging tea drinkers to unbottle their tea. This is a result of research that showed a large market among women in the age group of 25 to 35 that Salada could potentially reach. However, faced with the fact that this age group drinks bottled tea due to the convenience factor, Salada came up with this new unbottling campaign which you can see at http://unbottleyourtea.com/.
The new approach is based on three basic premises of freshly brewed tea:
- good for you
- good for your wallet
- good for the planet.
The first points refer to data showing that freshly brewed tea has double the antioxidant levels and less calories than sweetened bottled tea. Tea Guy says you can take in about 95% more antioxidants.
The second relates to a box of tea bags being cheaper to buy and make tea than the equivalent number of bottles with a 16 ounce serving of brewed tea from Salada being around $0.36 and a bottle of tea being $1.60.
The final point has to do with the increase in number of plastic bottles. The Tea Guy points out that the number of plastic bottles “wasted” each year has increased by 1.5 billion pounds from 1998 to 2008. Salada’s new Unbottle Your Tea website even asks for support of a bill in Congress to levy 5 cents deposit on beverage containers nationally.
Both of the last two points should take into consideration less manufacturing costs and pollution costs. Bottles are also bulkier taking up more room which conceivably means a higher transportation cost which could be part of their higher purchasing cost.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/business/media/13adnewsletter1.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&8ad=&oref=slogin&emc=seiaa1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1224003706-W3OR6EoAKTt3RAzSb7dJpw
http://www.teaguyspeaks.com/2008/10/saladas-announces-unbottle-your-tea.html
Filed under Health Benefits of Tea, Tea by on Oct 14th, 2008.