"elgoog" > writes:

> OMG this is a crime against tea!
>
> Wednesday March 23, 2:18 PM
> 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.
> http://in.news.yahoo.com/050323/137/2kcfr.html#Scene_1

While in India, I learned that scientists, or at least politicians,
there have been experimenting with pills compounded of substances less
palatable than cheap tea:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1037082.cms

Or, at least, *I* find those substances less palatable...

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html