Renad Ghanem Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Consumption of tea in Arab countries is significantly high and is equivalent to that in the United Kingdom and Ireland, both of which have the highest import per capita rate in the world, as it reaches 3 kilos of tea per person per year. These statistics and other studies were reviewed by a large number of dietitians from both public and private sectors during the “Tea: A Cup of Benefits” symposium 2012 held recently in Jeddah by Lipton Co., and highlighted the health benefits of drinking tea. Dr. Jane Rycroft from the Lipton Institute of Tea told the Saudi Gazette that people think that drinking coffee increases their concentration ability, yet, the studies they made on people who drink coffee and tea the whole day revealed the same effect on the issue, noting that persons who drink coffee cannot sleep at night. “As pioneers in the area of the effects of tea and tea ingredients on attention, we strongly believe that key ingredients found in tea, which include theanine, Caffeine and flavanoids combined in a cup of tea, help improve the ability to focus attention. The institute's mission is to promote this message, along with the additional benefits of black tea, which can help improve mental and physical wellbeing,” she said. She noted: “Attention is an essential aspect of cognitive functioning in that it allows us to process a combination of continuous and complex information. Hence, the attention benefits of tea are very relevant to everyday life.” Dr. Khaled Al-Madani, therapeutic nutrition consultant and former vice president of the Saudi Society for Food and Nutrition, stressed that tea owes much of its benefits to the “flavonoids” component which is a natural compound that exists in fruits, vegetables and tea, and plays an important role in protecting the human body. He said that after drinking 2-3 cups of black tea, participants improved their performance across all attention tasks, and after drinking 2-3 cups of black tea, participants reported feeling an increased sense of alertness. Toufic Elakhrass, foods marketing director – GCC, Unilever Arabia, said: “We are committed to advancing scientific knowledge of tea through our ongoing research and development programs, and it is essential that we actively share this knowledge to increase understanding of the benefits of tea within our region. Our facilities and technology are world-class, and the symposium provided a fantastic forum to share the findings these facilitate.” The Lipton Tea factory in Jebel Ali, Dubai, is the second biggest Unilever tea-producing factories in the world, as it produces 1 million bags of tea per hour, excluding other types of tea such as loose tea which is also produced in the factory. The Lipton Institute of Tea is Unilever's dedicated tea research facility, based in the UK, and provides Lipton with access to world-class tea experts. Scientific studies are conducted exploring the mental and physical benefits of tea, with the mission of increasing awareness and understanding, and ultimately creating teas for consumers. As well as research conducted directly by the Institute, it also funds and coordinates a large number of research projects at academic and research institutions around the world, making it the leading global authority on the benefits of tea and its ingredients, as well as tea preservation systems and tea leaf production. The conference disclosed that 117 billion cups of tea are consumed annually.
