Healthy tea extracts offer tasty functional beverages opportunity

Tea’s healthy substances and active components offer the beverage industry valuable ingredients which, claims the company “…deliver straight from nature the same benefits that products with added ingredients promise​”.

Products containing natural herb extracts are in line with conumers’ food and beverage preferences for purity, authenticity and simplicity.

Health awareness​

The company’s global segment manager, Norman Gierow told NutraIngredientsUSA.com that US and world demand for tea extract products was being driven by increasing “...health awareness; re-discovering the value of traditional and pure ingredients (the back-to-the-roots trend) ... and demand for natural and pure ingredients​.“

Also, in the US market there were big American players which had launched recent initiatives to grow in the health and wellness drink sector, said Gierow.

His colleague Martin Leuzinger, head of global market segment management added: “In the beverage industry, high-quality concentrated extracts of herbs and teas are ideal for developing innovative drinks that have natural additional benefits. Health-conscious consumers understand and appreciate product concepts that contain herbal extracts and can relate to them.“​

As evidence of such drinks innovation, the company pointed to European product launches at VitaFoods in Geneva, Switzerland from Plantextrakt; for which it supplies packaging. Those were a milk drink containing extracts of black tea and ginger with natural coconut flavour and a yoghurt drink with hibiscus, pomegranate and grape seed extracts.

More than 1000 new alcohol-free drinks containing herbs have been launched in the past five years, confirms reserch from Mintel.

Underpinning likely US demand for tea extracts are the health benefits associated with the beverage.

According to TeaUSA.org, which comprises the Tea Association of the USA, the Tea Council of the USA, and the Specialty Tea Institute, tea contains flavonoids which have antioxidant properties.

Antioxidant properties​

“The antioxidant properties of tea flavonoids may play a role in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease by decreasing lipid oxidation, reducing the instances of heart attacks and stroke, and may beneficially impact blood vessel function , an important indicator of cardiovascular health​,” said the website.

It also cites recent human and animal studies featuring green and black tea which concluded tea my prevent certain cancers as well as benefiting oral and bone health as well as supporting the human immune system.

“Tea flavonoids may lower the risk of certain cancers by inhibiting the oxidative changes in DNA from free radicals and some carcinogens, Tea may also promote programmed cell death, or apoptosis, and inhibit the rate of cell division, thereby decreasing the growth of abnormal cells​,” it said.

Meanwhile, speaking at Drinks Ingredients 2010, the first virtual trade show event organised by NutraingredientsUSA.com’s sister title, BeverageDaily.com, Chris Brockman of Leatherhead Food Research valued the global tea market at $15.4bn in 2009.

US tea consumption was identified at 0.65kg per person per year. That compares with the globe’s big tea drinking nation – Ireland where people consumed 3.15kg per person.