Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (RJP)
Bengaluru, Jan 22: 'Areca Tea', a product that will not only cheer those with a special taste for the beverage, but more importantly, give a fresh lease of life to scores of areca growers, will enter the market from Friday, January 22.
Dr D Veerendra Heggade, the Dharmadhikari of Dharmasthala will release the wonder product in Bengaluru.
Twenty-nine-year-old Nivedan Nempe, a postgraduate in manufacturing and management technology from Melbourne University, the winner of ‘Make in India Excellence’ and ‘Innovative Product of the Year 2015’ awards, is the inventor of this tea.
Nivedan originally hails from Mandagadde village of Thirthahalli taluk in Shivamogga district. The idea struck him in 2014 during a discussion with friends who were worried that the Union government would ban chewing of areca. Areca is mainly used for gutka-making. Many states have already banned the sale of gutka.
The product is available in a tea bag form. 10 tea bags cost Rs 75.There is no need to add sugar or milk. Only with adding water and by boiling it, the areca tea can be prepared, said Nivedan Nempe briefing the press regarding the product in a press meet on Thursday.
"The areca growers are in distress. Areca need to be marketed in a better way. My product areca tea will take a step in this direction by creating a new market for the product," added Nivedan.
"As I am a pharmacist, I started to work on phyto-chemistry of areca nut. I sent areca nut for chemical identifications. I searched and collected all research papers published on areca nut. I found that areca nut contains aqueous tannin in it and also found many useful chemicals in it like rich anti-oxidants, proline (amino acids) and some digestive enzyme enhancing agents. According to International Pharma journal publication, areca nut has 21 types of health benefits. With all these information, I started to work on value added product development. I tried to extract tannin from areca nut and tried to convert it into a tea. After more than a year of research, I came out with tea from areca nut called as Areca Tea. After finding Areca Tea, I stared working on modernization of the product, and then took around 3-4 months to convert that into Areca Tea dip bags and started working on brand building of Areca Tea. The media and social media helped me to bring up Areca Tea. Now, I have got enquiries from all over the world," Nivedan says in his website.
With this positive news, areca growers are looking forward to make the most of the opportunity. Presently the product will be made available only in Karnataka.