Catechin

"Catechin" is such a popular word these years in Japan that most Japanese know the word while my friend who went to Vancouver ten years ago and has been living there didn't know this word. It is originally the name of chemical compound but it is more popular for us Japanese as a healthy material contained much in green tea. Several years ago, some beverage company used this catechin as a keyword of the sales promotion of their bottled green tea and that made this material so popular. The power of catechin is still going strong and the bottled green tea with specially condensed catechin was one of the smash hit products of the last year. I think that this popularity of catechin is caused by the image of this word, that is it is pronounce "KATEKIN" in Japanese which sounds unique, clean, and powerful for us Japanese.

Comments

[Corrector]

"Catechin" is such a popular word these days in Japan that most Japanese know the word, while my friend who went to Vancouver ten years ago, and has been living there, didn't know this word. It is originally the name of a chemical compound but it is more popular for us Japanese as a healthy material contained in green tea. Several years ago, some beverage company used this catechin as a keyword of the sales promotion of their bottled green tea and that made this product very popular. The power of catechin is still going strong and the bottled green tea with specially condensed catechin was one of the smash hit products of the last year. I think that the popularity of catechin is caused by the image of this word, that is it is pronounced "KATEKIN" in Japanese which sounds unique, clean, and powerful for us Japanese.

[Zak Konjic]

Do you know that the name of the chemical "catechin" derives from "catechu", which is black and pale acacia tree (uncaria gambier) and it is found in much higher cincentration in the bark of that tree, rather then in the green tea leaves? Catechis are also found in the spice "carrcumen" and in a different form in berries and grapes.