Tea is often used as a drink to prevent fat from being absorbed into the body. Catechins commonly found in green tea helps to boost your body’s ability to metabolise lipids (fat), thus promoting weight loss. Another ingredient that assists with weight loss is bitter gourd, which stimulates the liver to secrete bile acids to metabolise fat in the body.
“Oil slashing tea”
In Taiwan, 油切茶 (you qie cha), literally known as “oil slashing tea” is popularly consumed to block oil from being absorbed, allowing consumers to continue eating the food that they like. There are many products in the market and one of it is the tea product made from Okinawa bitter gourd by AGV Products Corp (愛之味股份有限公司). Most of these functional beverages are aimed at young females who like to indulge in food but also want to keep the body slim.
AGV Products Corp RTD tea made with bitter gourd from Okinawa, Japan. Image above.
Daily Mate Healthy Tea with bitter gourd
At the end of 2016, Uni-President (Thailand) introduced the Daily Mate Healthy Tea to provide a guilt-free experience to consumers who are fond of eating food with high calories and fat. This unsweetened green tea is made from bitter gourd, white kidney bean extract and L-Carnitine.
According to the product website, the drink helps to
- Inhibit the digestion of in-take carbohydrate by blocking starch, so that body has more time to excrete starch out before starch is digested into sugar and become unnecessary body fat with White Kidney Bean Extract
- Increase efficiency of burning fat with L-Carnitine, Green Tea and Balsam Pear Extract
- Enhance by balancing body, improving digestive system with Fiber
Daily Mate Healthy Tea has received the Healthier Choice certification from the Nutrition Promotion Foundation. It is available in a 400ml PET bottle.
The new Daily Mate Healthy Tea taps into the nutritional benefit of bitter gourd. The marketing message is the same as other “oil blocking tea” in Taiwan and that is it is okay to indulge in food but the ill effect can be moderated from drinking functional tea drink.
