EUROMEDICA  Hanover 3-4  Juni 2010	Advanced methods of diagnosis, treatment and prophylactics
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover Berliner Medizinischen Gesellschaft, Berlin

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The tea always was and still is being the most widespread and popular drink all over the world. This popularity is conditioned by a unique wide specter of biological activity as well as variety of produced production: black, green, yellow, red, white, pressed, briquetted, granulated, tinned, tabletted it can also be herbal or made from fruit-berry and so on…

One of the well-known teas, among the teas existed nowadays is ,,Paraguay tea,” that is known as ,,Mate,” it is made from the leaves and young sprouts of tropical plant Ilex Paraguerinsis St Hill. It is a species of wild native to subtropical south America: Paraguay, Argentina and southern Brasil.

Tea ,,Mate” is distinguished by wide spectre of biological activity, it has positive effect on heart and bowels, causes strong appetite, stimulates heart beating and regulates working of other organs, widens the capillaries and drops in pressure. As a result all organs are working better and temperature of the body is falling down by 0.3-0.4°C because of this features it is called ,,mankind benefactor.”

This unique features conditioned increased demand on this tea all over the world, but because of the limitation of its natural raw material resource it cannot satisfy market demands, for which it is needed to work out the new technology to produce ,,Paraguay tea” like drink from alternative raw material.

For this reason we have work ed out a new technology of producing a tea-like drink ,,Mate” from alternative raw material – Caucasian rhododendron leaves. This gives us an opportunity to widen the base of raw material needed for producing the tea ,,Mate” in subtropical conditions and to realize it in small industries and farming manufactures besides the specialized farms.

Caucasian rhododendron is an evergreen bush. It is nearly 1,5m. long. It flowers in June-July and it grows in highlands 1600-3000m. high from sea level. It is spread in the mixed forests of Alpine and Subalpine zones.

It belongs to the Georgian endemic plants family and is spread in all the mountain regions of Georgia. The leave composition is different in different vegetation periods: In spring surpluses the leaves of last year (of 2 year and of 3 year), but in Autumn of one year. It is known from public medicine, that the dryed leaves of rhododendron are used as tea substitute from a long time. It is widely used in Homeopathy in a case of quicksilver intoxication, diseases of mucous membrane cover and headache. It has a high P-vitamine activation. It is especially widely used when walking on highlands (mountains), because it can release the syndrome of oxygen insufficiency.

The scientific-research works for receiving the tea drink from Caucasian rhododendron leaves began in 90 years of 20-th century. Biopharmacological research of the received product, which was going on in Experimental Medicine Connecting University (Sokhumi C) showed that the working ability of mice has risen 2,5-3 times according to the ,,Evil wheel” test. But unfortunately, because of the events taking place in Abchazia the works on this matter didn’t continue. According to all these continuing this work has on important scientific and practical means.

We have carried out an additional laboratory experiment on manufacturing tea product from the leaves of rhododendron Caucasian following technological operations described below:

Fresh leaves were set up in Kokh’s device with water ferry for 3-5 minutes, attached leaves were placed in a layer of 2-3 cm and cooled up to a room temperature then passed through a meat grinder such as “Kutter” and crushed until the size of particles reached 3-5 mm size;

The crushed raw material was then fried on laboratory skillet at a temperature of 150-160 °C 10-15 minutes, then cooled and placed in a laboratory dryer at temperature of 70-75 °C maintained for 4-6 hours. After that, the crushed raw particles were cooled and repeatedly crushed and sorted on vibrating sifters.

According to these, we can conclude that an offered technology will be an important way to widen the raw material base of “Mate” type tea in Georgian subtropical conditions. Besides, its unlimited quantity can be used as the product with no coffein by people of all age and by people who suffer from heart diseases as well as some brain diseases and generally by contingent with limited usage of the caffeine.