Hot Tea Growing In Popularity

Tea is taking the world by storm. With more and more new flavors coming every day, the life of a tea drinker keeps getting better. Maybe it started with the onslaught of green-tea health benefits, such as helping fight cancer and cardiovascular problems, heart disease, and strokes. Its no doubt to the growing number of health releated and organic tea drinkers that antioxidants play a major role in this area. Antioxidants can have a great effect on removing cell-damaging properties and have been reported to even help with neurological diseases!

It remains a fact that tea sales in the United States keep climbing. from just over $1 Billion to over $5 billion over the past 10 years, according to the Tea Council of the USA. And it's not just traditional black and orange pekoe tea behind that growth - more people are buying green and specialty teas.

Tea is for fun," said Susan Zuege, co-owner of the Perennial Tea Room, located in Post Alley, near this city's famous Pike Place Market and the original Starbucks coffee shop. "You should enjoy it. If you don't, you might as well do coffee."

If you travel around the U.S.A., hotels throughout will be offering you more and more new flavors of tea to enjoy. Are Americans getting sick of coffee? More and more tea houses can be found, just take a look at CitySearch or another "locator" service and great tea will be all around! Tea's rising popularity has encouraged entrepreneurs to open tea shops around the country, even in rural communities such as Newton, N.J.; Carefree, Ariz.; and Anoka, Minn., where people sit for a while and enjoy a pot or a cup. And even in coffee-loving Seattle.

Forget about Starbucks, Coke or Sunny Delight -- tea is set to be most popular with drinkers in the 21st century. Chinese researchers say it will become quite popular among consumers seeking to keep healthy, stay young and live longer. Tea does not contain salt, fat or any other substance that could produce heat, said Ding Junzhi, honorary chairman of the International Research Institute for Tea Culture and a professor at the South China Agriculture University. Ding said drinking tea fits the lifestyle of modern people who care more about their health. And evidence is already emerging on the global horizon. Survey results released by the United Nations revealed that one of the secrets of longevity is "drinking more tea and smoking less."

A survey carried out in East China's Anhui Province shows that more than 30 centenarians in the province love drinking tea.

People nowadays are drinking less cocoa since it can be fattening and may lead to some childhood ailments, and caffeine also produces undesirable side-effects in the human body, according to research.