Tea drinking gains steam

Scores convenience stores in Tokyo's business district kick off a typical weekday with a morning ritual: commuters form a long queue at the cashier with small bottles of "healthy" green tea drinks in hand.

These exercise-starved office workers in their 30s and early 40s are turning to the benefits of a centuries-old Japanese tradition of drinking tea in the belief it cleanses the body.

The label on many of the bottles reads "Healthya Green Tea," made by Kao Corp, which is leading a group of firms making diet supplements called "functional foods," representing a market estimated by the government to be worth around ?1 trillion (US$9.1 billion) a year.

Those companies are mining an unexpected rich new vein of income: middle-aged men who are concerned about weight gains and diseases associated with obesity. Kao's sales in the foods and sanitary products division for the first quarter to June nearly doubled from a year earlier to ?29.4 billion.

Kao also produced vegetable oils that are said to prevent fat in food from being absorbed into the body.