LOOK! NO STRINGS! Tstix Launched in Paris - with No Strings, Tags or Mess
Tstix now delivers those teas in a more fashionable package – setting a trend in fashionable tea drinking both in cafes and also at home and in the office.
10/02/07 If you like your tea, but don’t like fishing or dangling a string with a teabag over a hot cup of water, hoping you will find a place to hide your used soggy teabag – brown and dripping – then you are in luck. Tstix are new and come as a long slender foil laminate tube, with over 1100 micro-perforation holes in their sides designed in a diamond pattern. Tstix is both a teabag and teaspoon in one; no strings, tags or mess afterwards.
The Tstix package was launched in Paris at the Salon d’Emballage on the Schwarze-Automation stand (manufacturers of the equipment), with huge interest from companies around the globe in this new concept.
Tstix are incredibly easy to use; it’s just like holding a spoon, but instead of letting your teabag sit passively in hot water, you actively stir your way to the tea colour you like. It might be the world’s fastest hot cup of tea… and also instant coffee where the Tstix replaces the need for spooned coffee and the need for a spoon to stir it.
Tstix add fashion ‘chic and panache’ to tea drinking!
Nowadays, people are discovering teas again – mood teas, fruit teas, herbals, green, white, black, rooibos, and others… The choice is enormous, and now Tstix makes them easy to drink, and easy on the eye.
While coffees have taken the world into a new era of sociability, the new age ‘café latte’ trend setters are also are looking for healthier lifestyle choices in the food and drinks they consume. Tea, particularly Green teas have been given a big thumbs-up in this area, with a number of health benefits being talked about in journals, news columns and lifestyle discussions.
Tstix now delivers those teas in a more fashionable package – setting a trend in fashionable tea drinking both in cafes and also at home and in the office.
The Tstix package is being licensed to manufacturers now.
The Tstix company is not a tea or coffee company, but a licensing company, specializing in micro-perforation technology. It has been granted Patents and Design Registrations over the Tstix invention and design in a number of countries, with other patents pending.
According to Geoff Stuart, in charge of International Licensing, the product has taken 6 years to develop from an idea into the product it is now: “People have liked the idea from the beginning, but the real question was could we make it! The answer is now – Yes, we can – and we supply the machinery to make it, as well as the micro-perforated, printed material in rolls made under license by Alcan and Amcor Packaging ready to use.”
“A lot of companies can make holes, but very, very few can achieve the precision accuracy we have across a printing web – with around 1200 holes of less than 0.5 mm in size in every Tstix made. That’s a lot of holes! We also supply the packing equipment, and our standard 12 lane machine can produce around 480 Tstix per minute”.
The Tstix company is now supplying the Tstix packing equipment and licensing its technology and the Tstix brand to companies worldwide. Schwarze-Automation in Germany supplies the specialized machinery needed to pack the product, while the micro-perforated packaging material is supplied by either Alcan Packaging Sarrebourg in France or Amcor Packaging in Mochheim, Germany.
A number of large tea and coffee producers are looking to manufacture their brand of Tstix, launching in 2007. With the level of interest shown to date, it would seem that 2007 may be a turning point in the tea and coffee market. People are looking for innovative new packaging, and certainly the Tstix package opens up a whole new market for manufacturers.
