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Today, tea is considered a "superfood" with polyphenol antioxidants and flavonoids and has become the world's second most popular beverage after water, according to the Tea Council of the USA. The tea industry in America is flourishing despite the recent economic downturn. According to the Tea Association of the USA the wholesale value of tea in America has grown from $1.84 (b)illion in 1990 to $10.41 (b)illion projected for 2013. And it's expected to continue to grow. The big thing now is premium tea tasting which is picking up from where wine tastings left off. At Chado Tea Room in Pasadena, California, tea tastings are booked weekly. Devan Shaw, co-owner of Chado says the classes are all the rage today: "The tea tasting generally comprises different teas that you invite people to a tasting to taste. We pick, out of our 350 teas, about 10 teas and we talk about those teas. It could be a straight tea from single origins, like from India, China or Sri Lanka for example. It could be different grades of tea like a Lung Ching Dragon WeII or an Oolong from China or a Darjeeling first flush or second flush and we talk about it and just like you have vineyards in wine, you have tea estates out of all these regions so you talk about it and relate to what the tea is from and since it's an agricultural product, tea tastes different with every bite." Doug Kendrick from Valencia, California, is a corporate staff trainer. He attends tea tastings and loves to learn about the history and the differences between the varieties. "I think one of the reasons why I like tea is because there is so much to cover. There are so many different varieties and so many different types from different countries and different ways of drinking it. Either just drink it with milk or not with milk, drinking the different styles, whether it's the Japanese style or Chinese style so there are just a lot of places to explore." According to the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture's fifth annual conference more than 5,600 scientific studies have been done in recent years on the benefits of tea which include diabetic weight and glucose management, cognitive improvement, and stress and stroke risk reduction. Ryan Benjamin Carl is with the American Tea Master Association and is a Certified Tea Master: "With the popularity of green tea in the last 10 years or so, people are starting to catch onto the antioxidants, the polyphenols, all of the health and aging benefited related nutrients that are in it. ." The American Tea Room in Beverly Hills is one of the most exclusive stores selling and serving teas. According to the Tea Association, Americans drank over 3 billion gallons of tea in 2011 and in 2012 they consumed 80 billion cups. In the past there has been a trend to make a brew using tea bags. But today the new trend is loose tea and teas infused with all sorts of interesting flavours. Tea flavours trending this year include sweetened and unsweetened, black teas, green teas, and unusual flavours such as toasted fig, brioche, macaron, and maraschino as people become more adventurous. David Barenholtz, owner of the American Tea Room, Beverly Hills says tea enthusiasts are now health conscious young people: Green tea tends to have less caffeine in it than black tea , which contains around 14-61 mg of caffeine per 240 ml. The average cup of brewed coffee contains around 95-200 mg of caffeine per 240 ml. It could be this lower caffeine content that makes tea such an attractive beverage for Nick Westbrook, who's a bartender from Santa Monica, California: You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/d7e187a84a6000ebf0dfe9d014c63074 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork