Lewis 3/28/05

> "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,

Decades ago, during my own sojourns through the subcontinent, scientists had
not yet developed a pill for the substance whose URL you point us to. Other
more direct delivery systems obtained. I will not describe these as we are
undoubtedly in mixed and sensitive company. There is nothing new under the
sun.

Michael