Slate has an interesting article on America's current obsession with all things green tea. I agree that the hype is over-the-top and the marketing behind some green-tea products is mind-boggling.
My favourite dumb add featuring green tea is the one for Snapple's green-tea drink, where a hapless young man treks to China to find out what EGCG is. The use of nutritional jargon and acronyms is an interesting marketing ploy - green tea must be good if it has a cool compound with a complicated name (so complicated we need an acronym, and so cool that nutritionists have researched it). "Let's not mention it's flavour, or how refreshing it is... let's just tell folks it has tons of EGCG!"
Now, I'll be happy if green tea actually has health benefits - I drink some almost every day. But the reason I drink it is that I enjoy it. I'm not going to pop green-tea pills, or use green-tea soap, just because it's the hot new thing...
My favourite dumb add featuring green tea is the one for Snapple's green-tea drink, where a hapless young man treks to China to find out what EGCG is. The use of nutritional jargon and acronyms is an interesting marketing ploy - green tea must be good if it has a cool compound with a complicated name (so complicated we need an acronym, and so cool that nutritionists have researched it). "Let's not mention it's flavour, or how refreshing it is... let's just tell folks it has tons of EGCG!"
Now, I'll be happy if green tea actually has health benefits - I drink some almost every day. But the reason I drink it is that I enjoy it. I'm not going to pop green-tea pills, or use green-tea soap, just because it's the hot new thing...
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