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April 2016 57 www.acma.it ACMA is one of the leading manufacturers of packaging machines in the consumer goods market, with a largest international share. Discover our tea bags packing solution at Tea & Coffee World Cup 2016. Cracow, Poland – 10 - 12 May 2016 Come visit us at stand 528 Acma technology. Make it natural chrysanthemums and other herbs, often blended with green and white teas for enhanced flavor and visual appeal. With consumer awareness around the negative impact of high sugar content rising along- side consumer demand for unsweetened beverages, most recipes now have a "no added sugar" variety. To witness the constant overlapping of the herbal segment and the tea seg- ment within the beverage market, one just looks at the ever-growing number of blends on store shelves, be they hot or iced. The ongoing globalization of them is bringing many new herbals to Western consumers who are keen to discover more health benefits, more well-being and more novelty. At the same time, they are also aware of the ancient Eastern wisdom and knowledge about the beneficial effects of traditional home-grown plants. Research done by Brian Keating and Mark Blumenthal (among a couple of others) of Sage Group, the American Botanical Council and SPINS, published a report in HerbalEGram in November 2014 (Volume 11, Issue 11) stating that in the U.S., chamomile was the top-sell- ing herbal ingredient in medicinal tea bags in mainstream multi-outlet, natural and specialty/gourmet channels at USD $57.8 million. For herbal beverage tea bags, it was also the top seller at USD $48.1 million. Chrysanthemum was not on either list. Considering that chamomile and chrysanthemum carry very similar health benefits, consumers' choices among the two will probably come from cultur- al preferences. Michel Pierre, who has run the oldest herbalist shop in central Paris since 1972, confirms the grow- ing demand for using herbal drinks to cleanse and detoxify the body in the spring and the fall and to maintain a balanced metabolism in spite of stressful lifestyles. He is open to the plants coming from other continents but prefers those that have been grown and used in the European fields for centuries. It is notable that in Europe, the tea industry and the herbal infusion industry decided to merge their respective trade associations. After more than 10 years of deliberations about the pros and the cons, the European Tea Committee and the European Herbal Infusion Association joined together in April 2015 and estab- lished the Tea & Herbal Infusions Europe, or T.H.I.E., Trade Association. With chamomile sitting as the most popular herb in medicinal and herbal infusions on many global retail shelves, and chrysanthemum sharing many of its beneficial properties, herbal tea connois- seurs can rest assured they can rely on both flowers for comfort and care in their future cups for ages to come. Barbara Dufrêne is the former Secretary General of the European Tea Committee and editor of La Nouvelle Presse du Thé. She may be reached at: b-dufrêne@orange.fr.