TeaHeadlines in the News!

[Chip]

Please share general tea related news items here for discussion ... of course you can still create a seperate topic if you prefer. However this will be a "stickied" topic.

In this topic, cite your source including news site and author, link to it, and insert a small relevent excerpt. Then your purpose for posting.

Generally, please do not post info from a second hand nature. Whenever possible cite the original source!

Also generally, please do not post an "article" from a vendor extolling their products on their site or their blog.

Thanks!

[Chip]

I will kick it off ... Rishi was recently nailed by the FDA for health claims in some of their teas. The article by Dan Bolton of WorldTeaNews sheds some interesting light on the subject!

After reading the article, I could not help but wonder if this was intended to make an example out of Rishi, considering all the other ABUSERS of medical claims for purposes of marketing. One look at Teavana's site will turn up numerous related offenses.

http://www.worldteanews.com/page.cfm/ac ... ntryID=149
It is possible that the article may not be viewable w/o a paid subscription after May 1st 2011 to WTN, a new policy.

A brief excerpt from Dan Bolton's article:

Rishi Tea on Wednesday removed website health claims for several of its teas following a Federal Drug Administration complaint.

In its warning letter the FDA concluded that Rishi had promoted the teas as drugs. All products that claim a use in the treatment, cure or prevention of disease are strictly regulated. In his letter of April 20 the FDA’s Minneapolis District Director, Gerald J. Berg, also cautioned Rishi about its use of nutrient content in its descriptions and use of the term “antioxidant” in connection with several teas.

What do you think?

[teaisme]

Tea headlines...good idea man

What do you think?

unfortunate for those who sell quality tea, but fair enough since they are also trying to keep the big corps in check

Speaking of corporations...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/ ... 7R20110428

A giant in the making? Ticker is TEA lol that's great

[Chip]

Thanks churng. Although there are clearly the big offenders, there are scores of tiny .coms abusing the health potential of tea and making insane claims along the way. They are like pesty gnats whenever conducting a search.

This is their niche, their only angle to sell tea. It can ironically be nauseating.

So is "TEA" being taken possibly by Teavana as its ticker, oh well. Maybe the founder will become a minority owner and get canned!

[whatsinaname]

Chip, you can try using more scientific search engines for primary literature. PubMed is ideal. Even Google Scholar omits much of the junk.

[Alex]

Little piece on BBC last year about The reputation of Shizuoka's green tea

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22555032

[kuánglóng]

Found this in the news today. Just one more article in a seemingly endless row. के गर्ने ? (What to do?)

http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2015/12 ... ea-estates

[CWarren]

EDITED

[Noonie]

I've worked in a global business for 20+ years and I still can't wrap my head around the "global economy" and how so many countries pay so low relative to the Western countries, and how here in the West we constantly look for opportunities to acquire cheap labour. At least with food I tend to buy local, but it's getting harder to keep up with the increasing globalization.

[john.b]

I live in a developing country now, Thailand, and how all that works out with low pay rates is clearer taking all the background into account. It's not as if Chinese workers or Thai lower class are earning $250 per month and trying to live in the US or Europe on it, where it would barely cover either food or housing, but certainly not both. Of course they are poor, but it's not quite that simple. Oddly that is about the Thai minimum wage for unskilled labor, but some people probably only earn $200.

It's not as simple as their living costs just being lower either, but they are. People would live in circumstances that would be unfamiliar in the West, with less consumption of mass produced goods, without pre-prepared foods, without air conditioning (it's heat that is offset rather than cold here), without a washing machine or dishwasher, etc. All of that is coming though; it's a transition, so even poorer families would embrace those aspects over time. Most of the population have televisions and cell phones; almost all electricity.

It was interesting visiting Laos, further behind the curve, just getting electricity when we first visited nearly a decade ago, and seeing satellite dishes next to grass huts. Part of that seemed so clearly positive, but it made you wonder what could be lost from it. We would see families gathered together around fires in the evenings in poorest villages, then in lower income neighborhoods relatively modern housing with electricity, but still with a fire outside, and people gathered, then in other places just no one, surely replaced by television screens inside instead, at some point with people chatting remotely on cell phones instead of that.

The interesting part to me isn't the development curve path but instead what happens once a country transitions through some of that. As infrastructure, health care, living conditions, etc. improve standard wages do as well, and the supply of inexpensive labor shifts, and new factories are built elsewhere instead. Of course Toyota can build cars in Malaysia instead but a tea plantation is a different thing; supply and demand pressures require resolution at the individual growing areas.

[Evan Draper]

Found this in the news today. Just one more article in a seemingly endless row. के गर्ने ? (What to do?)

http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2015/12 ... ea-estates

Yes, that is a pretty difficult problem. I enjoyed an odd little book called "The Hot Brew" which was a journalistic review of leftist terrorism of Assam tea estates. The colonial-era resentment of the estates as rich overlords is quite misplaced, as they can hardly compete economically these days. Yet the thousands of workers have no better option than to cling to the vestiges of their former livelihoods. I've heard that the Indian tea industry is hoping that some mechanization initiatives will help, but I can't imagine there is much to be gained there.

[kuánglóng]

Found this in the news today. Just one more article in a seemingly endless row. के गर्ने ? (What to do?)

http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2015/12 ... ea-estates

....
I've heard that the Indian tea industry is hoping that some mechanization initiatives will help, but I can't imagine there is much to be gained there.

At least in Darjeeling, if not everywhere else in India mechanization would make the situation far worse than it already is IMO. To get a better idea of how bad and complex it really is one would need to travel or better live there for a while. During my time in the hills I tried to get a better picture, listened to folks from all sides - workers, owners, managers, vendors, scientists, activists and the longer I listened the more helpless and hopeless I felt. Even my old mentor who has been in the business for more than 50 years and has excellent connections in all directions just shrugged his shoulders whenever this topic came up.
के गर्ने ? (Ke garne?) - What to do?

[Curly]

The worst part is the douche bag said he doesn't even like tea after ordering it. Anybody know anything about this gold medal sencha?

[BioHorn]

The worst part is the douche bag said he doesn't even like tea after ordering it. Anybody know anything about this gold medal sencha?

No, but here is a link to the amusing story:

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/ ... d=11570450

[Curly]

Thanks. I meant to include the link.