GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Feel like a cup of tea, but don’t have the time to brew one up? Pop a “tea pill” instead.
Indian tea scientists have produced a tea-flavoured pill that can be chewed or quickly dissolved in hot or cold water.
The brownish tablet weighs 0.3 grams and consists of 80 percent tea and 20 percent other flavours — a combination the inventors at the Tocklai tea research centre in Assam say peps you up just like a traditional cuppa.
“You can suck it, chew it or dissolve it in water the way you like to have it and still feel the taste of a real cup of tea,” said the centre’s director, Mridul Hazarika.
“As the liquid tea refreshes, this tea pill will also refresh the people because it contains pure tea ingredients.”
Hazarika said the centre had applied for a patent and the pill, with a bit more fine tuning, should hit the market in six months.
Indians drink a lot of tea but in recent years its tea business, the world’s largest, has faced growing competition from soft drinks.
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