No longer need a cup of tea be a forbidden drink for a child. As several studies have begun establishing the beneficial aspects of drinking not only green tea, but black tea as well, the beverage has also been found to be fit for children. Talking to the press after the seventh workshop on tea and health organized by the National Tea Research Foundation (NTRF), Chairman of the Tea Board of India Basudeb Banerjee said that while it has long been held that the presence of caffeine in tea made the drink unfit to be a children’s beverage, the caffeine content in colas was far more than that in tea.

“Tea cannot replace milk but it is a far more natural beverage as compared to an artificial drink, and worldwide efforts are on to establish it as a wellness beverage,” he said. The NTRF, an interactive research body set up by the Union Commerce Ministry and the Tea Board, gets financial support from the industry with matching grants from the National Bank of Agriculture & Rural Development (Nabard). [Read more...]