STiR coffee and tea magazine

10 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 4, 2017 (August / September) NEWS Drink Coffee, Live Longer Two studies released the same day report what coffee drinkers love to hear: If you drink coffee, you may live longer. The studies, both published July 10 in Annals of Internal Medicine, indicate your morning coffee can be a healthy habit. In one study, researchers at the Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles followed more than 185,000 people from a variety of ethnicities for 16 years and concluded even one cup a day helps. Of those tracked, people who drank one cup a day were 12% less likely to die over the course of the study. Two or more cups reduced the risk of dying to 18%. Those studied included African- Americans, Japanese-Americans, native Hawaiians and Caucasians. The second study tracked 520,000 Caucasian men and women from 10 European countries. Researchers conclud- ed that men who drank three or more cups, or the equivalent, each day were 18% less likely to die than non-drinkers during the 16-year period. Women's risks were reduced by 8%. The study also concluded that the European test subjects were less likely to die from liver or circulatory diseases. The results showed other health benefits as well. Please credit: Photo by Federica DiGiovanni / La Marzocco Drink coffee to live longer Court Grants Nestle Infringement Injunction When it became apparent single- cup brewers would dominate the coffee landscape, several manufac- turers filed patents that Nestlé claimed infringed on their original coffee capsule design. Turns out Société des Produits Nestlé was right. In May 2015 the Swiss brought all their guns to bear on Fast Eurocafé, SA, a capsule manufac- turer that patented a Dolce Gusto look-alike. Nestle failed to convince the Barcelona Commercial Court to halt production, a decision that opened the floodgates for hundreds of manufacturers making pods compatible with the Nescafé system. Two years later Nestle's lonely pursuit of justice paid off when the Barcelona Court of Appeals revoked the lower court order and enforced the preliminary injunction. The decision is final which will force Fast Eurocafé to abandon their design. It is not clear how the ruling will impact thousands of firms that patented their own versions of the popular capsules. Unrest in Darjeeling An indefinite strike by thousands of tea workers seeking statehood has left eight dead and halted the Darjeeling second flush harvest. The strike began in early June. In July government officials sent in national police to quell violence but to no avail. Only 200,000 kilos of second- flush escaped the mayhem, compared to 1.8 million kilos last year. Production costs are pro- jected to rise by $1.50 to $2.30 per kilo (INRs 100 to 150 per kilo). Factories remail idle and tea shipments are delayed or never departed from the high Himalayan gardens. The tea sector could lose uip to 40% of its revenue as production is expected to decline by at least 20% due to protests and absenteeism. Tea workers of Nepalese descent want the government to carve Gorkhaland from West Bengal. [DB] Researchers concluded antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds in both regular and decaffeinated coffee were responsible for the positive results. Work continues to identify which compounds deserve the credit. "A major strength of our study is that it included participants with widely varying dietary, lifestyle, and coffee drinking habits," says lead co-author Neil Murphy, Ph.D., a scientist in the section of nutrition and metabolism at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (part of the World Health Organization). World of Coffee Budapest Sets Attendance Record The first European editon of the newly-merged Specialty Coffee Association's annual show attracted a record crowd of 6,800 from a 100 countries. The exposition in Budapest filled the Hungexpo center where competitions were held for the World Brewer's Cup. The winner was Chad Wang of Jascaffee Coffee in Taiwan. Second place went to Ona Coffee's Sam Corra from Australia. Stathis Koretas of Taf Coffee in Greece won third. The winner of the World Latte Art Competition was Arnon Thitiprasert from Thailand, who won with an intricate rabbit and tree design followed by a deer looking over its shoulder. Lok Chan of Craft Coffee won the World Cup Tasters Champion- ship and Karthikeyan Rajendram of the UAE was named Ceve/Ibrik champion.

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