PR Web - Ferndale, WA, USA

Today at Natural Products Expo West (booth 915), wellness beverage company Healthy Innovations is launching Vida Tea, an ultra-premium sparkling green tea enhanced with vitamins and antioxidants. Vida Tea is offered in three refreshing flavors: Desert Pear Green Tea, Wild Berry Green Tea and Pomegranate Green Tea. For distribution and other information, please visit www.vidatea.com.

In conjunction with the launch, Healthy Innovations is unveiling a year-long campaign to donate five cents from every can of Vida Tea sold to the Children with Diabetes Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting people with Type 1 diabetes and funding research for a cure.

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SunJournal.com - Lewiston, ME, USA

By Fred Contrada , Newhouse News Service

The first thing that hits a visitor walking into the Tea Guys office is the scents. Cinnamon. Orange. Ginger. Could that be chocolate?

Some of the ingredients might seem like strange bedfellows for the black and green and white tea leaves that await these marriages, but Oliver and Emily Rich are skilled justices of the peace when it comes to blending teas.

Here in the former lumber yard office that has become the company’s headquarters and production facility, the Riches are riding the crest of a new wave in tea consumption with their own brand of blended teas called Tease.

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Daily Mirror Online - Colombo, Sri Lanka

St. Clair’s Teas, manufactured by Richard Pieris & Company, recently entered into Russian market via the recently concluded annual Prodexpo Trade Exhibition in Moscow.

The Business Development Manager for Maskeliya Tea Gardens Ceylon Ltd. Mr. Gehan Ellepola, a Subsidiary company of Richard Pieris & Company said: “This was the golden opportunity we were looking for our branded teas. Business in Russia is booming and the urban population is cash-rich and are looking for products and services that complement their affluent lifestyles.

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Daily Mail - UK

By JENNY HOPE

Women who drink three cups of tea a day may be protecting themselves against heart attacks and strokes.  They are less likely to have plaques - dangerous build-ups of fat and cholesterol - in their arteries, researchers found. Only around one third of women who drank three or more cups of tea a day had plaques in a neck artery, compared with almost half of those who drank no tea.

However, the French study appeared to show that men who were regular tea-drinkers did not reap the same health benefits. (more…)

New Zealand Herald - New Zealand

By Eloise Gibson

The founder of global tea brand Dilmah says the Fairtrade labelling scheme is a well-intentioned “farce” that does little but put money into the pockets of middle-sellers.

Sri Lankan businessman Merrill J. Fernando - well-known for his television advertisements inviting us to try Dilmah tea - spoke to the Herald on a visit to New Zealand last week with his son Dilhan.

“It’s no more than another marketing strategy,” he said of the Fairtrade label, which is designed to give a warrant of ethics to produce from developing countries. “It’s well-intentioned but the administration is poor.”

Fernando said little of the premium price attached to Fairtrade products ever reached growers in developing countries. “You’re not supporting [real] fair trade at all, you’re supporting all the middle-men.”

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HealthNewsDigest.com - New York, NY, USA

By Michael D. Shaw, Contributing Columnist - HealthNewsDigest.com

We’re all familiar with the beverage derived from the leaves and leaf buds of the plant Camellia sinensis. Black tea is fermented, in a process whereby the leaves are allowed to oxidize and develop deep flavors. While biological pigments known as flavonoids are present in all teas, those in black tea are considered to be more complex.

More than 4,000 flavonoids have been identified, and they have been found to impart beneficial effects on human health, including antiviral, anti-allergic, antiplatelet, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and antioxidant activities.

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Sify - Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

P.S. Sundar

“The tea industry should take the necessary steps to contain its production costs to gain global competency. Energy being a major cost factor, the industry should focus on conservation measures to make it more cost-beneficial,” said Basudeb Banerjee, Tea Board Chairman, launching a project on energy conservation in the South Indian tea industry. 

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BBC NEWS | Scotland

Drinking black tea could help prevent diabetes, according to new findings by scientists at Dundee University.
The researchers said black tea may have the potential to combat type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. They believe certain constituents of tea could act as an insulin substitute.

In Scotland, it is believed more than 190,000 people have diabetes which develops when the body fails to make enough insulin. In Tayside alone, latest figures show a 90% increase in the incidence of diabetes in the last 9 years. The Dundee team, led by Dr Graham Rena, hopes to secure more funding to continue its investigation.

In collaboration with colleagues at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, the researchers discovered that several black tea constituents, known as theaflavins and thearubigins, mimicked insulin action.

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Natural Ingredients USA

By Stephen Daniells

Drinking at least 23 cups of black tea a month, or about three-quarters of a cup a day, may slash the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by a whopping 71 per cent, suggests new research from Singapore.

The benefits of the beverage were not linked to the caffeine content, suggest the results of the study of 63,257 Chinese men and women published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

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Mid Devon Star - Taunton, Devon, England

By Jon Wills

A UGANDAN tea factory manager will be visiting Devon during Fairtrade Fortnight to spread the word about fairly-priced products. Martin Odoch comes from Gulu in Uganda where he is the Field Manager for the Mpanga Growers Tea Factory. The factory buys tea from 748 producers and markets it under the Fairtrade mark.

The Devon Fairtrade Steering Group decided to invite a Fairtrade producer to come to Devon for the whole of Fairtrade Fortnight. So, Martin has been invited to the county and will be appearing at a number of events during the Fortnight which runs from Monday (February 25) until Sunday, March 9.

Steering Group Co-ordinator Sue Errington said: “A cup of tea is such an essential part of our everyday life in England - and a crucial part of every Devon cream tea! This will be a wonderful opportunity for Martin to explain the mysteries of how to grow a green leaf and then create black tea from it. Martin also has worked with small-scale tea growers to make sure that Fairtrade standards are met. I think we will be very interesting to find out more about this aspect of his work. It is going to be a very exciting fortnight.”

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