Tea in pill form

Indian tea scientists have produced a tea-flavoured pill that can be chewed or quickly dissolved in hot or cold water.

The brownish tablet weighs 0.3 grams and consists of 80 percent tea and 20 percent other flavours -- a combination the inventors at the Tocklai tea research centre in Assam say peps you up just like a traditional cuppa.

"You can suck it, chew it or dissolve it in water the way you like to have it and still feel the taste of a real cup of tea," said the centre's director, Mridul Hazarika.