Premium Sri Lankan tea believed to boost libido

Premium Sri Lankan tea believed to boost libido

By Amal Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (AFP): A master taster at one of Sri Lanka's famed tea
firms slurps a spoonful brewed from a prized sample and spits it
out in distaste.

But the brew is more than a simple cuppa to his Japanese and
Arab buyers, who believe the drink will boost their libidos.

The Silver Tips tea is the most expensive commodity produced
in Sri Lanka and, although industry expert Sriyan Senadhira
thinks little of the bland variety, for the rich and mighty it is
a love potion.

"This is a very special tea because rich Arabs and Japanese
tea drinkers think it is an aphrodisiac," Senadhira said.

"Personally, I don't like. It tastes a bit like water."

Connoisseurs pay through their noses to keep the market firm
for Silver Tips.

Tea experts are unsure if the tea and the slightly more
expensive Golden Tips variety can enhance the sex drive but the
belief is good for the industry.

A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the exotic Silver Tips fetches up
to 8,000 rupees (US$140), compared to the regular quality teas
that sell for 150 rupees (less than $3) at wholesale rates.

Senadhira, a director at John Keells, a leading broking firm
here, draws on an experience of tasting and selling millions of
kilograms every week at the world's largest tea auction here.

To the uninitiated, the loud slurping noises Senadhira makes
while taking in the brewed tea may sound rude, but sloshing the
back of one's throat with it is the only way the quality of the
tea can be savored, he said.

The Silver Tips, which look like actual shavings from a chunk
of silver, do not make it to the tea tasting rooms often. In
fact, it is produced in such small quantities that it never makes
it to the tea auction.

Auctions

Only parcels weighing more than 75 kilograms (165 pounds) can
be offered at the auctions, where an average of five million
kilograms change hands every week, making Colombo the world's
biggest center for tea.

Once the pure Sri Lankan teas, better known by the nation's
former name of Ceylon, leave the shores of the country, they are
often blended with cheaper teas to bring down retail prices.

An international blend of tea would typically have a large
percentage of cheaper Kenyan and Indonesian produce to give it
body, Indian tea for appearance and Sri Lanka's to give it
quality and character. But it wouldn't include Silver Tips.

The exotic tea is taken from a clone known as 2043 from the
Camellia Sinensis, better known as the tea bush, and is grown at
elevations between 2, 000 and 4,000 feet (600 meters and 1,200
meters) above sea level, or some times even higher.

"There is no particular season for the Silver Tips," Senadhira
said.

"Sometimes there are requests for small quantities but there
is no regular market as such. It is only the rich Arabs and the
Japanese who buy it."

It is the more regular black tea that is the mainstay of the
Sri Lankan economy.

Sri Lanka was able to take more advantage of rising prices in
the world market last year because the country's tea crop turned
a bumper harvest.

Production

Production reached 258.4 million kilos (568.48 million pounds)
of tea last year, up from 245.96 million kilos in 1995. Sri
Lanka's tea exports last year rose to 243.5 million kilograms
from 240.8 million kilograms in 1995.

Sri Lanka last year lost the prestigious world top tea
exporter position to Kenya, which exported a million kilograms
more than this Indian Ocean island.

Earnings from tea last year rose by 35 percent to 32.5 billion
rupees, compared to 24 billion rupees in 1995.

In real terms, the rise is less dramatic because the rupee
depreciated by more than 10 percent against the dollar. But
still, the tea income is crucial for the country's war-battered
economy.

However, it is tea's health drink potential that is attractive
to Sri Lanka rather than the sex appeal of Silver Tips.

Sri Lanka is banking on plans to promote tea as a health drink
with the potential of preventing cancer.

Plantations deputy minister Athauda Seneviratne recently said
tea could reduce the risk of cancer and several other illnesses.

"According to research studies already undertaken on tea,
there is sufficient evidence to the effect that tea contains
components which would reduce the risk of cancer and many other
diseases," he said.