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Nandini Goswami
Calcutta: The newly formed Tea Association of South Asia (TASA) has identified thrust areas to boost the volume of tea consumption in the world. India has been identified as a major centre for ensuing generic promotion of tea.
Stressing the fact that generic promotion of tea within the member countries as well as outside to be a priority area for the Tasa, a decision to link the promotion with the health benefit was taken into account.
According to a top industry official, thrust areas including Pakistan and India within south Asia, and Myanmar, Thailand, South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia within east Asia have been identified for the exercise.
To set the process in motion, a decision towards approaching the common fund on commodities has been contemplated. This fund is slated to have a budget allocation for the promotion to support the generic campaign on "tea and health".
The generic promotion campaign is expected to be linked to the health benefit aspect of tea as a commodity , wherein theinformation on health aspects of tea would be shared among the member countries.
It was even decided to associate medical experts in the participating countries to further explore the possibility of highlighting the health message as a medium of generic promotion.
There is a lot of effort which will have to go into promoting a generic promotion on tea in all these countries. But the effort is worth it as over 50 per cent of the tea drinking population is within the Asian world, said an industry analyst.
It may be noted that the health aspects of tea in the western world of late has increased the interests in tea drinking in recent times. The whole idea is to increase drinking habits across all the age groups, said the official.
This necessarily makes it pertinent to propagate larger tea drinking habits on the back of the numerous health benefits that the commodity possesses.
Increased understanding of the commodity and its consumption would also neccessitate the possibility of undertaking furtherresearch on health aspects of tea as a continuation of the FAO programme.
The packet tea segment in the producing countries could explore the possibility of highlighting the message of health benefit on tea in the various countries subject to its legal implications, said the official.
One of the ideas mooted at the Tasa meeting was the idea of adherence to quality standards in tea by all countries in order to position itself on health parameters. To this effect, it was decided that marketing of tea should conform to the ISO 3720 specifications at the point of sale. A producer may be conforming to the quality standards at the point of production, but it is more important to stick to the same while selling the product at the retail end, said the official.
Tea as a product is often vulnerable to near tea products which are labelled as tea-the reason why it was decided by the Tasa members that the preparation of a document for the purpose of the definition of tea was important.
This would enable it to beprotected from other producst which are not derived from the tea bush, "Camellia Sinensis".
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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