Tata Steel Limited operates in its cardinal market sections of Automotive Construction sectors. While the Automotive Strategy is good evolved, its schemes in the Construction Segment is fragmented across several Divisions and Net income Centers. There is a demand to hold a chiseled Corporate Strategy for Tata Steel Limited to function the Construction section.
Presently, the industry is proliferated with several little participants. Due to minimal technological inputs, the entry barriers for new participants are low. There is besides easy handiness of standardised machinery for production. Further, the value add-on in the steel building stuffs like TMT bars, MS angles and channels, etc. is besides low, ensuing in low merchandise distinction in the market. The manufacturers of steel building stuffs are basically price-takers in the market, which straight expose their hard currency flows and profitableness to volatility in the steel monetary values. Besides, the presence of big-sized participants with established and integrated operations along with strong selling and distribution web consequences into intense competition in the industry.
The steel industry is cyclical in nature. It is driven by demand and provide conditions with strong linkages to the planetary markets. This consequences in hazard of monetary value fluctuations in the stock list of natural stuffs every bit good as finished goods. The steel industry has besides witnessed switch from traditional annually contract system for pricing of natural stuffs to quarterly contract agreements ensuing in increased volatility in the monetary values of natural stuffs.
With my research I would wish to research and urge if offering merchandise services or concentrating on profitable sections or prioritising markets in which to vie or concentrating on emerging or bing clients or increasing client focal point or some invention in pricing can assist Tata Steel Limited stay competent in this section and derive better consequences.
a ) How have different states evolved on steel ingestion and besides with regard to Construction / Infrastructure development.
B ) For India, how the building industry ( covering the current markets of TSL & A ; besides new markets ) should be segmented.
degree Celsius ) What are the features of these sections and what opportunities does it supply.
vitamin D ) Existing Merchandises and their places in the merchandise life rhythm.
vitamin E ) What are the New Products for Construction?
degree Fahrenheit ) Competitive scenario and what should be TSL positioning?
Apart from the above, other facets, as may look of import for developing the Corporate Strategy, can besides be covered.
For looking at steel ingestion tendencies in the building industry, I will trust on the secondary informations available on the web. For the domestic building industry, due to the deficiency of information that can be attributed largely to the unorganised nature of this industry so far, questioning people will be the best technique in each identified section.
The survey will be merely for the development, cleavage, features, chances, merchandise life rhythm, new merchandises positioning and competitory scenario merely in the construction/infrastructure industry of the Indian Market entirely. Thus the corporate scheme for the building section will be designed for the Indian industry entirely.
What is the demand of a corporate scheme for TSL now?
Downturn in the automotive demand: Construction industry is unorganised with more than 70 % market portion belonging to the little participants and 30 % split amongst the large participants. TSL 's bulk of grosss come from automotive sector where it works closely with OEMs and has bench grade merchandises for the automotive section. Projected growing rate of the automotive industry for 2012 was around 15 % but it grew merely by 10 % . Therefore, hitting all India steel manufacturers, particularly companies such as TSL. Few of the impacts are mentioned below.
FY 12 – No impact as of now. However, multiple coal beginnings developed with FY11 larning have helped in FY12.
Free trade understanding signed between India – South Korea and India Japan ( CEPA ) : Flat merchandises enlargement programs of TSL and competition but FTA signed that will do bench grade Flat merchandises available in India therefore doing environment more competitory. Imports of hot rolled spiral ( HRC ) , a benchmark merchandise, from Korea surged 125 per cent and from Japan, 72 per cent, in 2011-12 over the old twelvemonth.
1 Trillion Investment in the Infrastructure Development of India: The authorities of India wants to increase it 's infrastructure investing to USD 1 trillion and half of it is expected to come from the private investors. This will drive the steel demand in India well.
India amongst lowest per capita steel ingestion: India has one of the lowest steel ingestion in the universe of 57 kilograms per capita per annum. So, there is still a immense potency in the Indian market for steel ingestion.
How have different states evolved on steel ingestion w.r.t. Construction / Infrastructure development?
India has one of the lowest per capita steel ingestion: India has one of the lowest steel ingestion in the universe of 57 kilograms per capita per annum. The current universe norm is at 214.7 Kgs per capita and the Asiatic norm is at 238.8 Kgs. So, we can see that even though India has one of the oldest steel manufacturers amongst the development states but when compared with other states which started their development attempts during the same clip, India someplace has lost it 's path.
Top 10 states with highest per capita steel ingestion: Below we will take a expression at states that have one of the highest steel ingestion in the universe and we will seek to understand what factors that have led these states to go such immense consumers of steel with regard to building.
From the above two graphs we can see that China in malice of it 's high population and low GDP per capita, still has a really high per capita steel ingestion. So, we can state that personal income can non needfully be a good step of steel ingestion. So what are the grounds that lead to the higher ingestion in other states that surpassed a century long India steel industry behind?
Infrastructure and Industrial sections are to a great extent dependent on authorities policies and need to keep safety and criterions severally. Residential and commercial sections have low steel strength as authoritiess are non really peculiar about this and by and large a safety certification from the designer is adequate.
How have different sectors contributed to the GDP of the above states?
Industrialisation ( or industrialisation ) is the period of societal and economic alteration that transforms a human group from an agricultural society into an industrial 1. It is a portion of a wider modernisation procedure, where societal alteration and economic development are closely related with technological invention, peculiarly with the development of large-scale energy and metallurgy production. It is the extended organisation of an economic system for the intent of fabrication.
Industrialization besides introduces a signifier of philosophical alteration where people obtain a different attitude towards their perceptual experience of nature, and a sociological procedure of omnipresent rationalisation. There is considerable literature on the factors easing industrial modernisation and endeavor development. Key positive factors identified by research workers have ranged from favourable political-legal environments for industry and commercialism, through abundant natural resources of assorted sorts, to plentiful supplies of comparatively low-priced, skilled and adaptable labour.
As industrial workers incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all sorts tend to spread out and supply a farther stimulation to industrial investing and economic growing.
The first state to industrialise was the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution, get downing in the 18th century. By the terminal of the twentieth century, East Asia had become one of the most late industrialised parts of the universe.
The consequence of industrialisation shown above by lifting income degrees since 1500. The graph shows the gross domestic merchandise ( at buying power para ) per capita between 1500 and 1950 in 1990 International dollars for selected states.
We can see all the other states had their stages where the Industrial sections grew prior to services sectors that chiefly drove the steel ingestion to a basal degree. India ne'er had an industrial roar and boulder clay now and the fabrication section has been stagnant at 16 % for the past 2 decennaries.
The top 10 states holding highest per capita ingestion seem to hold followed the form of growing coming in from Primary, Secondary and so Tertiary sections. However, India ne'er had Industrial revolution stage. Huge population could hold explained the lower ingestion in India but China, in malice of it 's high population has high steel ingestion due to the industrial growing presently. However, recent National Manufacturing Policy and other reforms in land allotment seems to hold boosted investor 's assurance.
India 's PMI Score, a main index of the chances of the fabrication sector, signals a PMI mark that looks better than China. India 's HSBC fabrication Buying Managers ' Index ( PMI ) fell to 52.9 in July, from 55.0 in June – its biggest one-month bead since September last twelvemonth ; whereas, China 's mill buying directors ' index fell to an eight-month depression of 50.1 in July.
The Construction industry of India is an of import index of the development as it creates investing chances across assorted related sectors. The building industry has contributed an estimated INR3,84,282 Crore to the national GDP in 2010-11 ( a portion of around 8 % ) . The industry is fragmented, with a smattering of major companies involved in the building activities across all sections ; medium sized companies specialising in niche activities ; and little and average contractors who work on the subcontractor footing and transport out the work in the field. The sector is labour-intensive and, including indirect occupations, provides employment to more than 35 million people.
Merely the residential and commercial sections have chiefly spearheaded the building industry due to the high population in India. In India, authorities 's 5 twelvemonth programs everyplace are really promising and look good on paper but effectual execution has ne'er been possible due to several issues.
Most indexs suggest important lag in activity in 2011-12. There is one anomalousness. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy ( CMIE ) claims undertakings deserving over Rs 4 hundred thousand crore ( a record ) were completed in 2011-12. It should hold translated into high growing in the building sector and well higher offtake of cement and steel.
But steel and cement more or less stagnated. The building industry 's growing rate dropped. The Economic Survey estimates the building sector grew at 4.8 per cent in 2011-12, compared to 8 per cent growing in 2010-11. One possible reply to the mystifier is the methodological analysis 'rear-loads ' . That is, even if a undertaking was, say 90 per cent complete before 2011-12, the full undertaking value would still be counted in the fiscal of completion.
The restraints for the building industry included lag in existent estate, deficit of skilled labor, high involvement rates, slow environmental clearances and so on. This was reflected in hapless public presentation of assorted listed companies in the building infinite in the first three quarters of 2011-12.
Construction is among the more cyclically sensitive industries. Activity depends on activity in real-estate and on the creative activity of physical substructure ( roads, Bridgess, dikes ) .
This service industry absorbs immense, albeit fluctuating labour forces at changing degrees of accomplishment from the absolutely unskilled to the extremely sophisticated. It is a major consumer of steel, cement, specialized machinery, and so on. It is besides capital intensifier and has a long gestation. Finally, it is vulnerable to switch in political alliances and policy alteration. Agony can be caused by ill framed contracts that result in endless legal differences.
If the economic system is depressed, the building industry can really shrivel with startling celerity. Conversely, if the economic system roars, it can demo accelerated growing. Unfortunately, it is prone to bubbles. In 2007 and 2008, states like Ireland, Spain and Iceland, for illustration, saw building lending 15-20 per cent of GDP. China and Japan have besides seen monolithic building roars. When the existent estate sector collapsed after the subprime crisis, building went flop every bit good.
Booms in building can nevertheless, be sustainable for longer periods if the building activity is driven by substructure creative activity. In India, building contributed approximately 8 per cent of GDP in 2011-12 and it offered employment to around 33 million, more than any sector aside from agribusiness. Approximately 55 per cent of building grosss come from substructure, while industrial building contributes another 35 per cent with the remainder coming from family and little commercial developments.
The industry part to GDP is down from 12 per cent in the roar period, between 2004-08. But it 's still pretty significant and in absolute footings, the industry has grown. The sector is really disconnected. There are 100s of mid-sized and little unorganized participants every bit good as a smattering of truly large participants. The large 1s ( L & A ; T, HCC, GMR ) have become developers instead than staying contractors.
Undertakings worth an estimated Rs 140 hundred thousand crore are estimated to be in assorted phases of the grapevine harmonizing to CMIE. The Twelfth Plan entirely is supposed to lend Rs 41 hundred thousand crore worth of substructure creative activity with about half coming from the private sector. Urban development, private sector undertakings, and so on, do up the remainder.
This undertaking flow should prolong the building industry over the following five old ages at the least, unless the current lag persists for an unprecedented period. However, the historic growing rate for the building industry is about 9 per cent CAGR and it underperformed GDP in the past three fiscals. To to the full capitalize on the chances, growing would hold to speed up boulder clay around 15 per cent CAGR. That implies building turning at about twice the GDP rate.
It likely can non rage up to those degrees of efficiency. The structural jobs wo n't screen out easy though fiscal liquidness should ease as the concern rhythm turns. However, an investor with a long timeframe should see acceptable growing rates.
Types of merchandises: Long merchandises are chiefly consumed by the building industry. Flat merchandises go into the automotive industry. However, the recent debut of structural steel in the India market is altering the ingestion spiel where more structural steel will be used for building. Structural steel is a downstream discrepancy of level steel.
Long Merchandises: Long merchandises are made out of blooms or notes and are considered to be semi-finished merchandises. Long merchandises include rebars, wires, tracks etc.
Flat merchandises: Roofing solutions in the signifier of GC Sheet finds application in roof sheds for residential in rural countries and in industrial sheds. Structural steel discoveries applications in the industrial, commercial and residential sections.
Presently, all participants have enlargement programs for the India market. If we take look below, we can detect that bulk of enlargement is planned for Flat Products. However, the demand from the automotive section has gone down and the authorities has signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan and South Korea late. This will acquire more level merchandises in the market therefore increasing the competition.
Established and progressive companies have started constructing their trade names and increased their selling attempts. Capacity enlargement will shortly do this a really competitory market with each participant contending difficult to happen their bridgehead.
NMDC – 3mtpa program in Chattisgarh. 2mtpa steel works in JV with Severstal in Karnataka.
National Aluminium Company ( Nalco ) to get bets in Idcol Kalinga Iron Works ( IKIWL ) and Idcol Ferro-chrome Alloys ( IFCAL ) .
JSPL – Increased interest in Rocklands Richfield mines, front-runer for geting militias of Bandanna Energy. El Mutun mines in Bolivis now operational.
RINL – Revived negotiations to get Neelanchal Ispat Nigam Ltd. To entree to the latter 's Fe ore supply.
Essar – Seeking spouse to research allocated mines Brazil.
SAIL, NMDC, RINL pool budding to get Afghanistan 's Hajigak Fe ore mines.
Composite stuffs and new merchandises have started replacing traditional steel merchandises such as angles, channels, flats being replaced by structural steel.
Dickering power of Buyers: Steelmakers are spread outing capacities through assorted paths. This will drive down the monetary values of steel in the domestic market.
SAIL – Comissioning Burnpur installation this twelvemonth. Clearance to construct a 5.6 mtpa steel works on Hindustan Fertilizers ' assets in Sindri. Besides, looking at chances of puting up steel workss in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.
RINL – Eying acquisition of KIOCL to use subsequently ' installations.
SAIL & A ; POSCO researching usage of FINEX tech.
JSPL mou with Rio Tinto Hismelt.
JSW – Puting up steel works in Bolivia near El Mutun mines.
Small companies such as ANT Steel and Kartik Alloys are looking Botswana to put up steel workss to provide to demand from building.
Infrastructure and Industrial: Both these sections are really closely related. Growth plans and incentives in one section entirely can non make up one's mind the growing that will follow. We must look at substructure and industrial sections together as it is most of import for an industrializing state to hold good substructure to back up these undertakings. At the same clip, it is the industrial undertakings and development that makes it easy for private investors to cut down their payback period and pull maximal additions from these undertakings.
Development of industrial undertakings ensures a strict use of these undertakings. For illustration, for undertakings where merchandises will do usage of the roads, main roads etc. , the duties on the vehicles that will utilize these paths is straight relative to the axel burden. This means that faster earning can be made if more trucks utilize these paths. There are several illustrations in India that reinforce this relationship. The Mumbai – Pune Highway and Delhi Gurgaon Highway are great illustrations of how industrial growing propels the substructure industry.
Therefore, the complete index for the growing of substructure is besides dependent on the fabrication or industrial sectors. So, even if we have private investors coming in and conveying efficiencies, it is the demand that has to travel up and that can go on merely with efficient and spherical policies for the growing of industrialisation. In other words, efficiencies will non interpret into demand.
Commercial and Residential: The commercial edifices normally follow based on the authorities maestro programs for residential development. Residential and Commercial edifices are largely for grosss purpose or salvaging costs. Therefore, this is the B2C section of the building industry where trade names matter. Residential building programs propel the commercial building. Therefore, it is the growing in the residential population in an country that will impel the growing in the commercial sections. Thus normally quickly urbanizing countries see several private investings in the signifier of Malls, Multiplexes, Parking Lots etc.
IIFCL ( Indian Infrastructure Finance Company Limited ) : A particular purpose vehicle of the authorities established to undertake the jobs of substructure funding. Infrastructure Debt Fund specifically designed for private sector loans backed by autonomous bonds. These financess will hold lower involvement rate and longer clip period.
NMCC ( National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council ) : Development of Manufacturing pockets in state that will drive the use of National and province main roads therefore cut downing payback period for private investors. This aims to raise 16 % part to 25 % part to GDP by 2022. This will further ensue in creative activity of 100 million occupations.
DFCCIL ( Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited ) : Again a Particular Purpose Vehicle designed to transport out the substructure plans for the Easter and western corridors associating several provinces. This aims to supply inducement for growing in industrialisation.
Alteration to Land Transfer Policies: Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh on 2nd August 2012, approved alterations in the land transportation policy for authorities – owned land which would assist pave the manner for fast-tracking pending substructure undertakings. The latest move adds to the attempts of the PMO to kick-start substructure undertakings, important to resuscitate growing and hike sentiment.
Early on last twelvemonth, a prohibition had been imposed on transportation of government-owned land to any entity except in instances where land was to be transferred from one authorities section to another. Now, the PM has approved alterations that will let all instances of land transportation from ministries to statutory governments or PSUs. He has besides relaxed all instances of land transportation on rental or rent or licence to a concessioner which have been appraised through the Public Private Partnership Approval Committee ( PPPAC ) path and approved by the finance curate or by the curates concerned or by the Cabinet, depending upon the value of the undertaking. The PM has besides allowed development and usage of railroad land by Rail Land Development Authority ( RLDA ) , harmonizing to the commissariats of Railways Amendment Act, 2005, and authorities regulations. Harmonizing to a PMO statement, the relaxation in the land transportation regulations is expected to significantly rush up award of public-private partnership ( PPP ) undertakings from this month.
Statutory Liquidity Ratio has been reduced to 23 % to increase the recognition in the economic system. The Reserve Bank of India 's move to cut the statutory liquidness ratio ( SLR ) from 24 per cent to 23 per cent, supplying Bankss with an extra Rs 60,000 crore to impart, may trip some Bankss to travel for a cut in involvement rate. The chance to impart to the private sector will increase as a consequence of this. If there is demand for recognition in the private sector whether it is at the retail or corporate degree, so this will make some extra capacity.
With more than 50 % population of India coming under 30 old ages of age and with 37.2 % of people below the poorness line, there is demand for sufficient development of substructure. However, there is turning outlooks of local communities and other interest holders, widespread opposition to set down acquisition, left air current extremism, increasing disparity in operational countries, and uninterrupted examination by regulative organic structures, NGOs etc. that have now become stronger and more powerful.
PEBs: Pre – Engineered edifices are a important tendency in modern downstream building merchandises. This reduces the cost and increases the velocity of building.
Pre – stressed edifices: Several high rise merchandises and industrial undertakings are utilizing pre – stressed concrete today. This is largely to increase the capacity burden in these applications.
Environmental technology has gained important importance in India. In add-on to the land transportation issues now infrastructure development governments besides have to cover with the environmental norms as good. This has led to the halting of several substructure and industrial undertaking.
Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation has besides become most of import factors. Though largely political but these are important hurting points for the building industry.
Punishment: This is another facet that makes the building industry highly hazardous for investors. Small accidents lead to sellers acquiring barred from future engagement. For illustration, in the Delhi Metro Accident instance in 2009, the Gammon Group was banned for 2 old ages for command for any substructure undertakings. Delay in work completion besides causes heavy punishment for the sellers.
BIS Standards: BIS criterions are certification of genuineness for merchandises in the Indian Markets. Couple of months back, BIS criterions were made mandatary for secondary manufacturers therefore rendering several of the secondary manufacturers unable to sell their merchandises in the Indian Market. This is a measure taken by the Steel Ministry to upgrade the quality of building patterns in India. This will supply important chances for incorporate steel manufacturers such as Tata Steel Limited, SAIL, RINL, JSW etc.
The aim of Indira Awaas Yojana is chiefly to assist building of brooding units by members of Scheduled Castes/ Schedule Tribes, freed bonded labourers and besides non- SC/ST rural hapless below the poorness line by supplying them with grant-in-aid. The mark group for houses under Indira Awaas Yojana is people below poorness line life in rural countries belonging to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes, freed bonded labourers and non- SC/ST Categories. A upper limit of 40 % of the entire IAY allotment during a fiscal twelvemonth can be utilized for building of brooding units for non-SC/ST BPL classs. This sum has once more been increased from INR 45,000 to INR 75,000 and for hilly and Naxal-affected countries, the grants for building houses under the strategy will travel up from Rs 48,500 Crore to Rs 80,000 this twelvemonth. Besides, INR 9000 will be given for building lavatories and INR 10,000 will be given for land procurance.
Interest subvention on low-cost lodging: The 1 % involvement subvention on lodging loans upto Rs. 15 hundred thousand for the purchase of a residential belongings bing up to Rs. 25 hundred thousand was earlier available boulder clay March 31st 2012. It has now been extended by one more twelvemonth. Additionally, service revenue enhancement freedom is applicable for low-cost lodging, i.e. units non transcending 60 square metres in size. Mumbai younger purchasers are looking for smaller places to salvage revenue enhancements.
Young purchasers of residential units: This has triggered the demand for economical instead low-cost lodging in India. The spread between the salary degrees of working professionals in India and the more developed states has narrowed in recent old ages ensuing in immature Indians being able to afford a house really early in their calling.
Low-cost lodging demand in the residential section have reduced borders in the residential building section. Therefore, Pre-fabricated has evolved as the most favourable signifier of building where the designs are insistent. Therefore Pre- fancied building techniques have become common with several SMEs now bring forthing several downstream solutions for this.
Today the authorities besides has a strategic focal point to travel perpendicular and non horizontal for cut downing the deficit in the residential building infinite. Therefore even for the underside of the pyramid, the low-cost lodging construct in the signifier of community development is coming up in a large manner.
Presently, merely safety issued by the designers is a demand for commercial and residential building undertakings.
What are the new demands and deductions of sections on steel shapers?
Residential and Commercial edifices to hold insistent constructions and standard design to salvage on cost and clip.
Independent House Builders ( IHB ) are consumers who will make the procurance of natural stuffs themselves to purchase their ain house. This section of clients build places one time in a life-time therefore to them the quality or the trade name image plays a critical factor in choosing the natural stuffs. To them being duped is a major concern while securing stuffs to construct their ain houses.
Small Medium Enterprises ( SME ) clients engage in the building of residential, commercial and industrial undertakings. Quality and monetary value play an of import function as SMEs operate on a tight budget. Trade names are merely of import to the extent where the undertaking proprietors specify the trade names to be used. For illustration, normally authorities undertakings merely allow the use of steel from Integrated Steel Producers. In some ways this besides limits the sum of undertakings that SMEs can take therefore doing them susceptible to pay premium.
Undertaking Buyers are large building industry participants who engage in substructure and industrial building largely. They are really intelligent and timeserving purchasers who will non pay a premium for the trade name. However, their measure of purchase and their image in the building industry besides makes them preferable clients.
Brand and Service are the most of import factors in the sections that have consumer engagement. The residential section comprises 70 % IHBs therefore consumer engagement is the highest. At the same clip, services required is the highest sing the low cognition of the clients. However, the most of import factor in all sections is the relationship that plays an influencing factor when beging undertakings.
Manufacturing Industry PMI mark, Government Policy Reforms, Need for Manufacturing Industry, Infrastructure Policy reforms signal immense demand for steel and structural steel.
The commercial and residential sections will see a demand for more pre – fancied concrete due to the low-cost lodging and cost effectual solutions needed.
Utility Housing Solutions for industrialising countries.
Impacts due to China 's GDP autumn will impact Asia and in general the markets will travel down.
Capacity enlargement will increase competition.
Plus strong trade name edifice activities.
Competition is able to introduce with stigmatization as capacity will non be restraint instead be a demand.
Demand for structural steel and composite stuffs for big purchasers. Calamities will increase demand for merchandises with seismal belongingss.
The relationship can assist foretell the growing chances in a logical order. Therefore, substructure undertakings will turn foremost and so fabricating with a little slowdown.
Growth in Project Buyers Demand due to infra enlargement, SME and industrial growing, retailing of Utility Housing Solutions.
Per capita income growing rate.
Introduction: Indian transnational steel-making company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, and a subordinate of the Tata Group. It is the 12th-largest steel bring forthing company in the universe, with an one-year petroleum steel capacity of 24.2 million metric tons, and the largest private-sector steel company in India measured by domestic production. Its largest works is located in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. In August 2007, Tata Steel acquired the UK-based steel shaper Corus in what was, to day of the month, the largest international acquisition by an Indian company. Tata Steel is listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India, and employs approximately 80,000 people. Tata Steel is graded 401st in the 2012 Fortune Global 500 ranking of the universe 's biggest corporations. It is the 8th most-valuable Indian trade name harmonizing to an one-year study conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in 2010. The company was recognized as the universe 's best steel manufacturer by World Steel Dynamicss in 2005. It has besides been listed as World 's most ethical companies by Forbes.
Strategic Purpose: Tata Steel has set the mark of accomplishing a capacity of 100 million dozenss by 2015. It is be aftering for capacity enlargement to be balanced approximately 50-50 between Greenfield developments and acquisitions. Abroad acquisitions have already added up to 21.4 million metric ton, which includes Corus production at 18.2 million metric ton, Natsteel production at two million metric ton and Millennium Steel production at 1.2 million metric ton. Tata is looking to add another 29 million metric tons through the acquisition path.
6 million metric ton works in Orissa, India: Tata steel is puting up 6 million metric ton per annum capacity works at Kalinganagar.
10 million metric ton in Jharkhand, India: The capacity of Jamshedpur steel works has already been increased to 6.8 MTPA. It is expected that its capacity will increase by 10 MPTA in close hereafter.
5 million metric ton in Chhattisgarh, India: Tata steel signed MOU with Chhattisgarh authorities in 2005 for puting up 5 MTPA works. But, it is confronting strong protest from tribal people.
Tata Steel signed up an EoI to put up a 6 MTPA works in Haveri territory of Karnataka.
Subordinates: Tata Steel 's abroad ventures and investings in planetary companies have helped the Company make a fabrication and selling web in Europe, South East Asia and the Pacific-rim states. The Group 's South East Asiatic operations comprise Tata Steel Thailand, in which it has 67.1 % equity and Nat Steel Retentions, which is one of the largest steel manufacturers in the Asia Pacific with presence across seven states.
Tata Steel Europe: The line of descent of Corus can be traced back to the earliest yearss of steel production in the UK and The Netherlands. In 1988, the British Steel Corporation was privatised and 12 old ages subsequently it merged with Koninklijke Hoogovens of The Netherlands to organize Corus. With their really different but every bit proud and long histories, Tata Steel and Corus had much in common in footings of concern civilization and planetary vision. Therefore, the thought of collaborative growing through Tata Steel European operations was an attack peculiarly relevant in the planetary market today. At present, Tata Steel Europe supplies steel and related services to the building, automotive, packaging, rail, energy and power, raising and unearthing and other demanding markets worldwide.
NatSteel Retentions: Headquartered in Singapore, NatSteel Holdings ( antecedently NatSteel Asia ) is a taking provider of premium steel merchandises for the building industry and was actively involved in Singapore 's state edifice attempts. It became a 100 % subordinate of Tata Steel in February 2004. NSH produces about 2 MTP of steel merchandises yearly across its regional operations.
Tata Steel Thailand: Tata Steel Thailand ( antecedently Millennium Steel ) is headquartered in Bangkok, and is a major steel manufacturer in and is the largest manufacturer of long steel merchandises with a fabrication capacity of 1.2 MTPA.
Production Capacity: Tata Steel has been prosecuting growing in India through brownfield and new greenfield enlargement undertakings as besides through strategic partnerships. The Jamshedpur ( India ) Works at nowadays has a petroleum steel production capacity of 6.8 MTPA. The Company is in the concluding stage of commissioning the 2.9 mtpa enlargement undertaking at Jamshedpur and put to deathing the 6 mtpa greenfield works at Odisha in two stages of 3 mtpa each. Therefore, Tata Steel by 2014, would hold a planetary steel capacity of 33.5 million metric tons, and will add a farther three million metric tons on the full execution of the Odisha undertaking.
Last financial its capacity comprised 75 % of level steel and 25 % long steel. By the terminal of this financial, Tata Steel, with a capacity of 9.7mtpa, will stand at 4th topographic point after JSW Steel, SAIL and Essar Steel.
However, the advantage of Tata Steel as compared with these three participants is its natural stuff security.
Trade names providing to the building section: Over the last decennary, Tata Steel 's scheme has been to travel up the value concatenation towards differentiated merchandises and services. Therefore, the Company 's focal point has been on downstream and value-added merchandises through new investings and merchandise development.
Tata Steel 's Jamshedpur Works produces hot and cold rolled spirals and sheets, galvanised sheets, tubings, wire rods, building rebars and bearings. In an effort to 'decommoditise ' steel, Tata Steel has introduced trade names like Tata Steelium ( the universe 's first branded Cold Rolled Steel ) , Tata Shaktee ( Galvanised Corrugated Sheets ) , Tata Tiscon ( re-bars ) , Tata Bearings, Tata Agrico ( manus tools and implements ) , Tata Wiron ( galvanised wire merchandises ) , Tata Pipes ( pipes for building ) and Tata Structura ( modern-day building stuff ) . Apart from these merchandise trade names, the company besides has in its creases a service trade name called " steeljunction " – the universe 's largest retail market place for steel.
Tata Steel Europe 's chief operating divisions comprise Strip Products, Long Products and Distribution and Building Systems Division. The NatSteel group produces building class steel such as rebars, 'cut-and-bend ' coops for building, mesh, precage dullard heap, Personal computer wires and Personal computer strand.
Tata Steel Thailand produces unit of ammunition bars and de-formed bars for the building industry.
TSL 's entire capacity for building merchandises is 37.82 % of it 's entire production capacity.
From the above we can see that the above merchandises are still in demand due to the flourishing demand. The chief ground for so many merchandises to be in it 's early stage can besides be attributed to the BIS criterions which are the cardinal criterions that are followed for any design or specifications.
TSL clients comprise the Individual House Builders ( IHB ) , Small Medium Enterprise ( SMEs ) and Project clients. The engagement of terminal consumers increases as we move from Undertaking purchasers to Individual House Builders. This is why today all commoditized industries are seeking to tap into the Indian retail market as this allows them to bear down premium. The Tata Brand is really outstanding coupled with a really strong distribution system to back up the retail merchants and distributers.
The decisive competitory border of TSL has been to distinguish on the footing of Brand and Service. Thus, TSL is continuously seeking to travel to the retail section but still doing capacity uses and relationship with the current industrial merchandises for Undertaking Customers.
TSL 's aim has been to busy the top three places in every section it competes. Till now they have manage this aim in all markets that they compete in.
By the terminal of this financial, Tata Steel, with a capacity of 9.7mtpa, will stand at 4th topographic point after JSW Steel, SAIL and Essar Steel. However, the advantage of Tata Steel as compared with these three participants is its natural stuff security.
Capacity High Margin on merchandises due to confined mines.
Merchandises cater to merely one section of the building market.
Dynamic Buffer Management allows TSL to expeditiously pull off the largest retail web in the industry allows them to aim consumers straight.
Strong Brand Image creative activity that allows them to bear down premium.
Brand name can non be leveraged on other sections to bear down premium.
Value Selling Technique adopted by TSL to develop clients.
Premium charged from the retail clients.
Parameters: The company analysis can be looked from the manner the company manufactures till the merchandises reach the consumers. Thus the logical sequence being Merchandises i? Distribution i? Marketing i? Gross saless i? Customers. For the chances and menaces we will look at Segments, Competition, Products, Relationship between sections, clients and consumers. All of this has been described in the above subdivision in item.
The commercial and residential sections will see a demand for more pre-fabricated concrete due to the low-cost lodging and cost effectual solutions needed.
Growth in Project Buyers Demand due to infra enlargement, SME and industrial growing, retailing of Utility Housing.
1. PMI mark, Government Policy Reforms, Need for Manufacturing Industry, and Infrastructure Policy reforms signal immense demand for structural steel.
2. Government policies for low-cost lodging will connote the commercial and residential sections will see a demand for more pre – fancied concrete due to the low-cost lodging and cost effectual solutions needed.
3. Utility Housing Solutions for industrialising countries.
4. Calamities will increse demand for merchandises with sesmic belongingss.
5. The relationship can assist foretell the growing chances in a logical order. Therefore, substructure undertakings will turn foremost and so fabricating with a little slowdown.
6. Growth in Project Buyers Demand due to infra exapnsion, SME and indutrial growing.
1. Impacts due to China 's GDP autumn will impact Asia and ingeneral the markets will travel down.
2. Increased focal point by competition on rtailing and stigmatization activities.
3. Flat merchandises capacity enlargement by competition.
4. IAY has increased but there is no specification for stuff to be used. therefore, developing merchandises sing this to be a significant market is non really good.
1. Capacity High Margin on merchandises due to confined mines.
2. Dynamic Buffer Management allows TSL to expeditiously pull off the largest retail web in the industry allows them to aim consumers straight.
3. Strong Brand Image creative activity that allows them to bear down premium.
4. Experience of Infrastructure and Industrial building.
1 ) Develop merchandises and services for industrial and infrastructural sections. Therefore, connoting growing in Institutional and SME Customers.
2 ) Develop pre – fabricated solutions for commercial and residential sections and force them through the retail web.
4 ) Capacity enlargement for structural steel.
1 ) Leverage Brand Image to force Industrial Products into retail. The range of NEST can be perforate the industrial section with merchandises.
2. Merchandises largely cater to merely one section of the building market.
3. Brand name can non be leveraged on other sections to bear down premium.
1 ) Services capablenesss can be developed rapidly to function other sections.
1 ) Developing downstream merchandises such as public-service corporation lodging and pusing it through the retail channels can undertake competition who do non hold a immense retail concatenation.
Provide services to the unserved markets such as Industrial and Infrastructure sections by leveraging on old experiences of township development to develop relationships.
Develop pre – fabricated solutions for commercial and residential sections and force them through the retail web.
Capacity enlargement for structural steel.
Utility lodging solutions for Industrial building. The range of NEST can be expanded to perforate all sections with this merchandise.


Sometimes I freak out because I can't feel my ring.
Oh crap, I think. I lost it.
Then I look down and realize it's okay. It's still there.
Then I start thinking about how I got the ring, and it doesn't seem real that Jordan actually knelt down in front of me and asked me to marry him.
It means I'll be a bride, which is weird, because aren't brides supposed to be older and more mature than me? Maybe not. All I know is, sometimes I forget that soon I'll be changing my last name and living with a boy.
Then I remember that we don't actually have a place to live.
This weekend, I'm flying to Illinois with my mom and aunt (and sister? I can't remember if she's coming) for a bridal shower. It's my first. I'm so excited, because there will be college friends and high school friends and family all together. People gathering just to see me! Not to sound conceited or anything, but they will be there just to see me.
Unfortunately, that means I'll have to remind myself how to put on makeup and find something to wear besides sweatpants.
This whole blizzard thing has really cramped my cute factor.
Still, I'm excited to see my grandparents and hang out with my girlfriends for the weekend. I'll get to show them my ring! I didn't have one the last time I was there. No, the last time I was there I didn't have any news to report. Yes, my job is good. Yes, church is good. Yes, Jordan is good. Not super interesting.
But now I have news. And there will be gifts.
Have fun! And remember, the bride gets as many pieces of cake as she wants.


Rich earthly tones appear here on these Vanda Jacintho metal and enamel earrings. The Bridge earrings are artfully sculpted to a hoop shape in gold and silver metals, and finished with contrasting enamel inlays. Wear them with the designer's vibrant prints for an all over look.


text:
This Weeks Questions
Questions for Week 2
Welcome to our social interactive platform Truths and Lies. This is the grandfather of Never Have Ever. My name is Dario Callender and I am the creator and founder of the website (not the game) Truths and Lie. The game 'two truths and a lie' has been around for quite some time.
'Truths and Lie' was created mid-2016 in the matter of a month. I came up with the idea when playing the verbal version of the game with an ex and we kept forgetting some of the statements and our score. Also, we had to both think of our next set of statements while answering the others statements in the attempt to keep the game going at a good pace. Also, the game required a partner which in reality may not always be available.
Having observed the methods of playing was too limited and provided no way to track scores. I created two modes a single and multiplayer version of the game. For the multiplayer version, sign up is required.
Two Truths and a Lie works best when played with 2 to 4 people of which you are close to. That makes it easier for them to guess the truths from the lies. Therefore this game works great for couples or newly dating individuals. It can also be used to help revive the spark or bring up old memories in some relationships by really showing your partner the good times you had together or how interesting you are as a person by some of the things you've done.
For more information on the game visit the homepage but we are here to talk about me! By profession, I am a web designer. Unfortunately, I have underutilized my skills when creating the site – don't worry we are due for an overhaul soon. I am also a social media marketer along with but not limited to being a Search Engine Optimizer (when I have the time). That is me in a nutshell so don't be shy to share information about yourself when signing up.
Truths and Lie © 2019 | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Service | DMCA

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
module ROTP
  DEFAULT_INTERVAL = 30
  class TOTP < OTP

    attr_reader :interval, :issuer

    # @option options [Integer] interval (30) the time interval in seconds for OTP
    #     This defaults to 30 which is standard.
    def initialize(s, options = {})
      @interval = options[:interval] || DEFAULT_INTERVAL
      @issuer = options[:issuer]
      super
    end

    # Accepts either a Unix timestamp integer or a Time object.
    # Time objects will be adjusted to UTC automatically
    # @param [Time/Integer] time the time to generate an OTP for
    # @option [Boolean] padding (true) Issue the number as a 0 padded string
    def at(time, padding=true)
      unless time.class == Time
        time = Time.at(time.to_i)
      end
      generate_otp(timecode(time), padding)
    end

    # Generate the current time OTP
    # @return [Integer] the OTP as an integer
    def now(padding=true)
      generate_otp(timecode(Time.now), padding)
    end

    # Verifies the OTP passed in against the current time OTP
    # @param [String/Integer] otp the OTP to check against
    def verify(otp, time = Time.now)
      super(otp, self.at(time))
    end

    # Verifies the OTP passed in against the current time OTP
    # and adjacent intervals up to +drift+.
    # @param [String] otp the OTP to check against
    # @param [Integer] drift the number of seconds that the client
    #     and server are allowed to drift apart
    def verify_with_drift(otp, drift, time = Time.now)
      time = time.to_i
      times = (time-drift..time+drift).step(interval).to_a
      times << time + drift if times.last < time + drift
      times.any? { |ti| verify(otp, ti) }
    end

    # Returns the provisioning URI for the OTP
    # This can then be encoded in a QR Code and used
    # to provision the Google Authenticator app
    # @param [String] name of the account
    # @return [String] provisioning uri
    def provisioning_uri(name)
      encode_params("otpauth://totp/#{URI.encode(name)}",
                    :secret => secret, :period => (interval==30 ? nil : interval), :issuer => issuer)
    end

    private

    def timecode(time)
      time.utc.to_i / interval
    end

  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Fall Cleanse | Fall Cleanse – GHI Wellness Ltd.
Are you getting those sniffles in the morning or a runny nose.... and perhaps a scratchy throat?
Are you feeling lethargic and depressed with the change of the season?
Are you confused with what to eat to keep you healthy now that the new season is coming in?
Or are you feeling frustrated that what you've been doing isn't working?
Do you want to feel vibrant and energized? Do you want to have that glow? That's going to happen when you've cleaned your insides to look radiant and glowing outside! Beauty radiating from the inside out!
I feel energized every time!! And I still have energy to join bootcamp twice a week and go gym 2-3 time a week!
Hi! I'm Angelica Cabahug, a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Functional Nutrition Coach and Raw Food Chef.
You've come to this site because you may be looking for solutions to your sugar cravings, low energy, excessive weight gain or digestive issues that you've tried to solve for years.
This Clean Eating Program will help you find your solutions once and for all!
I used to be heavier and was experiencing elimination issues.
I also had yeast overgrowth called "Candida" and was prescribed medications that didn't work.
Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer!
I had to undergo surgery and was told I would have to be given chemo, radiation and other drugs as a protocol....it was heartbreaking! But before surgery, I found something that I never knew would bring me out of my health predicament. I immediately put it into use for 3 months prior to surgery.
The doctor said: "The pathology report shows you have negative estrogen receptors. You don't need chemotherapy or radiation or other drug medications."
I was able to stay away from chemo, radiation and other drugs that I was supposed to have.
My life changed from thereon. I felt better, healthier and stronger!
I want you to win the battle!
Why should you take this Clean Eating Program?
Summer has given you all the natural sweet, moist fruits and vegetables to keep you cool. You may no longer find them in the coming cold months and they may no longer sustain you when the season changes.
You will be able to prepare your body to face the cold months by boosting your immunity and decreasing your internal inflammation.
This is where you prepare your body and your kitchen for the detox. It only takes 4 days to do this. You will be getting the guides, recipes, meal plans, journal and other tips and tools to get you started.
This is the phase where you start eating clean, wholesome, nutritious food, eliminating those that keep you from reaching your health goals. This takes only 7 days (just a week) to do. You'll be implementing good habits for self-care. You'll also see reduced inflammation, eliminate toxins out of your body, restore gut health and overall feeling of energy.
This is the last phase of the program. You will slowly transition your body to taking the foods that you've eliminated in Phase 2 by re-introducing them back. This takes another 4 days to do it. This way you'll identify the foods that trigger inflammation and avoid them to get your health in-check and balanced.
Why do a clean eating program in the Fall?
Fall is when most animals prepare for hibernation. The spring and summer brings life and light-heartedness. We get to go outdoors and enjoy the sun. We become free spirited human beings. Fall is the time to ground ourselves so we are ready for the colder months ahead. The season brings more grounding fruits and vegetables to keep us warm.
Cleansing when seasons change is one way of restoring your health.
You'll be able to eliminate foods that make you feel tired and exhausted all the time.
You'll reduce sugar cravings and balance your blood sugar.
You'll surely reduce gas and bloating.
You've bought books and followed their protocols but aren't getting the results you want.
You're sick and tired of following programs that give you empty promises.
You want to do the right thing to get your health back - even if it takes hard work!
You're ready to be in control of your health!
You want to maintain your normal eating habits and only want to add a pill or potion.
You're just looking for a quick fix.
You don't have that deep drive to commit and take action to get better.
Are you ready? Are you committed? Are you in?
If so, then sign up for the Fall Clean Eating Program. You deserve it!
Questions about the Clean Eating Program? Click here.


text:
Lucifer, America's oldest hippo, confronts his age in Homosassa Springs
In the wild, an ancient hippopotamus might make his 50th year. Lu turned 59 in January.
MONICA HERNDON | Times At 59, Lu is the oldest living hippopotamus in the Americas. He is the only nonnative animal at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park
By Jack Evans
HOMOSASSA SPRINGS — Lucifer poses in the sun. He has this down, seeming not to care while simultaneously stealing all focus. He's Kate Moss on the runway. He's Greg Maddux in the World Series. He's Kurt Cobain on the cover of Rolling Stone, staring at the camera behind sunglasses and a T-shirt that says, "Corporate magazines still suck."
Lucifer has spent all morning underwater, and some days he might stay there. But turn a corner on a path winding through Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and there he is: the oldest living hippopotamus in the Americas and certainly one of the most famous, lumbering around his beach, resplendent in the warming January morning.
He commands the limelight. He adapted to it as a child actor and roadside attraction star. He clung to it when the state took over the park and resolved to get rid of all nonnative animals, and he snatched it back in a matter of months when the park tried to discontinue the daily educational program he featured in.
They call him "Lu" these days. Some felt his full name was too connoted with the devil. No one can say why he was named Lucifer in the first place.
Today there are cameras, which Lu mugs for. He huffs steam from his nostrils. He cranks his jaw open, and the inside of his mouth looks like the bottom of a river. He "laughs," a sound that in the wild signals aggression but in Lu signals goodwill.
He rests his head — the size of a mini-fridge — on the rock wall around his enclosure. Later, he will gingerly edge back into the water, like an aging wrestler lowering himself into an ice bath.
Lu turned 59 in January, and he has started feeling his age. He sometimes takes palmfuls of ibuprofen for his arthritis. When his skin dried out, park rangers devised a lotion made of aloe and honey and a method for applying it to an animal too dangerous to touch: a long-handled paint roller. He's approaching rarefied hippo air: of Donna, who lived to 61 before her 2012 death in Indiana; of Bertha, who reportedly touched 65 before dying at the Manila Zoo in 2017.
In the wild, an ancient hippopotamus might make his 50th year. Life spans for hippos tend to average between 30 and 40. Lu's wild cousins lack the benefits of proprietary skin lotion and a steel-encased night house, of course, but Lu barreling toward 60 is kind of like an American human making it to 120 — with a healthy appetite and functioning knee joints.
And he is still something to behold. If you haven't been up close to a hippo in a while, you might not grasp the gravity. He is assuredly bigger than you think, and surprisingly elegant on feet the size of Frisbees.
Still, some people manage to look away, and when they do, Lu shows his chagrin in the most casual way he knows. This is why the edge of the enclosure sports a yellow, diamond-shaped sign with a silhouette of a tail-swishing hippo and the words "SPLATTER ZONE." It's why one of Lu's human friends asks, as if in warning, if we are familiar with how hippos go to the bathroom.
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And now the onlookers have turned away, and Lu turns away in response. Then he swishes his tail, and the careless souls spring away from his dung spray like house cats from a lawn sprinkler.
No hits this time. Just a friendly reminder to pay attention. Here he is, a cult icon, a living relic of a Florida that only exists now on postcards and in movies, and he stands here for you in the sun.
Vicky Iozzia has been a volunteer at Homosassa Springs for 15 years. Three days a week at 12:30, she stands before a crowd that lines the edges of the enclosure and gives the afternoon program, where she runs down the history of the park's alligators and their neighbor the hippo, "the most stubborn individual I have ever known."
He is Vicky's best friend. She tosses him hunks of cantaloupe; he offers reliable companionship. Her ringtone is his laugh. A bench near the enclosure has a plaque that reads "LU AND VICKY FOREVER."
If you've been to the park, or read about Lu before, you probably know the outlines of his life, which started with his birth at the San Diego Zoo and hit its first significant plot point around age 4, when he was sold to Ivan Tors, the writer-director who spent the 1960s making animal-themed adventure shows like Flipper and Daktari.
The park cites Lu as a star of the latter show, and at least one episode does prominently feature a young hippopotamus. Though the show's nonhuman crediting is sketchy, the plot of "The Return of Ethel and Albert" from 1967 seems drawn from Lu's life. It hinges on a pair of unusual, inseparable companions, a hippopotamus and a donkey. In real life, Lu followed Tors' troupe donkey, Susie, like a shadow.
As Vicky tells it, Susie led Lu into showbiz, and when she died, he quit.
The animal troupe lived at Homosassa Springs when it wasn't filming, and its presence helped the springs find success as a roadside attraction. In the decades after the rise of the automobile, such attractions thrived along major surface roads like U.S. 19. Rick Kilby, a self-described "roadside history enthusiast" who wrote Finding the Fountain of Youth about Florida's springs and environmental tourism, says the attractions connected to the earliest days of tourism in Florida, when steamboats hauled wealthy patrons down the state's waterways so they could gawk at — and shoot, then stuff — the bizarre animals.
The creatures of Homosassa Springs, regardless of whether they were native to Florida, fit into that tradition. Today, the park's youngest patrons may be three or four generations removed from kids who, in the 1960s, bought bags of marshmallows to toss into Lu's mouth. He has survived from an era defined by roadside tourism to one where its remnants, Kilby says, are "endangered."
The end was already coming when Lu arrived. The year before the hippo joined Tors, Walt Disney flew over a tract of land in Orlando and saw magic. Eight years later, Disney World opened. The theme park pulled tourists onto the newly constructed I-4 and Florida's Turnpike and away from U.S. 19, U.S. 441 and the Old Dixie Highway. Roadside spots withered.
Lu has outlived the era's other relics. Snooty the manatee, who lived at the South Florida Museum, died in 2017, two days after his 69th birthday when he drowned in his tank. Nellie, a dolphin born at Marineland in 1953, died in 2014. Sarasota Jungle Gardens may have some parrots older than Lu, Kilby says, but none are as iconic as the hippo.
"I think he's the last one."
In 1990, a 32-year-old Tom Linley walked into a Homosassa Springs in flux. In the 1980s, Citrus County had purchased the struggling park, and a year before hiring Linley to manage the park, the state took it over. Buildings needed repair, new staff needed training and Linley's predecessor had played fast and loose with state procedure.
The state tried to keep the park's spirit while redefining its purpose to focus on native animals. Linley had to clean house. He sold the geese and peacocks to private owners. He got bids from zoological facilities on the monkeys. And then he realized Lu was next on the list.
Linley, now program director for the Florida State Parks Foundation, says he wasn't surprised at what happened next — he knew generations of locals had fallen for Lu's charisma — but didn't expect the scale of it. In his previous job, he had managed an island park that got 200 visitors on a big day; now he was at one that got 200,000 in a year. And as word spread that Lu might leave, local outrage turned into a letter-writing campaign that turned, eventually, into then-Gov. Lawton Chiles' recognition of Lu as a citizen of Florida.
It helped cement Lu's legacy, and to Linley, it made him a representation of the community's investment in the park. From 1990 to Linley's departure in 2004, the park's annual volunteer hours increased from 6,000 — the equivalent of about three full-time employees — to 10 times that.
Around the same time, zoos and wildlife parks started changing in ways that are still evolving and being debated. They had once been focused on human entertainment — the opportunity to interact with, or at least get close to, an exotic beast, and maybe see it do some neat tricks. Over the past few decades, attention has shifted to education and conservation.
Lu was a harbinger of this future. Tors was ahead of his time in animal training, says the park's wildlife care supervisor, Tricia Fowler. He trained Lu with concepts like positive reinforcement and operant conditioning, where animals learn to associate their behaviors with certain outcomes. Now, Lu will open his mouth for you, which is great not just for entertainment but also for inspecting the health of his teeth.
Today, the park focuses on rehabilitating injured native animals and caring for those that couldn't survive in the wild. If you're looking for pathos, there's plenty to go around — in the whooping cranes trying desperately to conceive, in the Florida panther orphaned when he lost track of his mother and followed the wrong adult panther in the wild.
Lu is different. He's not an ambassador of Florida's native fauna; he can't teach people about the creatures they may encounter in the wild. What he has in common with the park's other permanent residents is that he could never survive on his own. This is his home.
Linley has a favorite Lu story. The 1993 Storm of the Century caught the park off guard just like everyone else, and that night, Linley found himself in a canoe hitched to Lu's enclosure as the water rose to 4 feet on the sidewalk. He had the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. shift. Coleman lanterns hung in the trees, the only light around.
Linley clutched a gun. This was standard procedure in the days before Lu had a night house that would stay put in a flood. Before that, every major storm carried the possibility of Lu's escape into the Homosassa River, a disastrous possibility given his size and strength. Park employees would have to kill him before he could hurt anyone.
The manager could hear the wind ripping up fences around the park. Trees crashed into the alligator lagoon nearby. Lu lurked somewhere in the water, and Linley constantly swept his flashlight across its surface, looking for the red reflection of Lu's eyes.
Some alligators and otters got out that night. Linley thinks Lu could have, too, had the water gone up another 2 feet. But Linley had "the total bejeebers" scared out of him there in all that darkness when Lu broke the surface of the water right beside the boat.
As if to say: I'm still here.
Lu's 59th birthday celebration followed the outline of years past. He got two parties, one on the morning of the Monday after his birthday and one later that afternoon. He got a "cake" — really, bread with sweet frosting. Backed by schoolchildren, Vicky sang a birthday song. She writes a new verse every year.
She thinks about Lu's mortality. She thinks about it like she did with a sick cat once: Let's just enjoy what we have right now. That's all we have.
Lu never hides his feelings, and his dominant feeling seems to be unbothered. Maybe the passage of time feels like nothing to him. There are just days that are colder than others, and days that his dung hits an unsuspecting third-grader, and occasionally days when he's tossed a hunk of bread covered in something sweet.
When Linley managed the park, he lived in a trailer home set up on cinder blocks behind the animal enclosures. Every day, he walked past Lu's enclosure, and as he passed, he mimicked Lu's Darth Vader laugh: haauuuugh haaauuuuugh haaaauuuuugh. Eventually, Lu started calling back.
Linley still does a pretty good Lu impression. And maybe it's reflex and maybe it's memory, but, well, you know how Lu responds.
Does Lu ever get lonely? Vicky pauses.
"He doesn't want people to know he's a virgin."
She laughs. Lu wouldn't know what to do with a mate. A bachelor's life is the only life he has ever known. And anyway, people come from all over, every day, to look at him. Plus, she has him. Lu and Vicky Forever.
"I don't think he ever gets lonely," she says.
She knows, at least, how she feels standing at the edge of his enclosure.
Sometimes she sees him looking out at the clear spring water, eyeing the manatees that swim in for the warmth in winter months. It doesn't look like longing to her. She thinks he's communicating silently with these other huge mammals, visitors to his domain. When all you know is cupped by the horizon, what more is there to want?
Contact Jack Evans at jevans@tampabay.com. Follow @JackHEvans.
Up next:Pet of the Week
Jack Evans
Health Equity Reporter


Your brand is the aspect of your personality that you're showing to customers and clients. It's airbrushed and polished and upon it rests all of your best qualities, skills, investments and experiences. As such, you're free to add any number of identities to your personal brand so long as you feel it'll reflect well on your working and professional persona. Here's a list of four rather unusual identities to affix to your brand with the hopes of improving your presence, trustworthiness, and esteem in the eyes of your customers and clients.
You can be a reseller of all kinds of things, from technological solutions through to new Adidas shoes. You can click here to find out more about the former, with an ability to sell cloud-based tech through Bytes. Of course, in other realms, like the Adidas shoe, you'll be looking at eBay, Amazon or your own online store to resell your items. In any case, having another string to your bow can never be a bad thing, and presenting yourself as a reseller shows a certain amount of disciplined entrepreneurship that's usually attractive in businesspeople.
There's a good amount of research emerging at the moment to say that the subset of skills delineated by the descriptor 'creativity' is the most in-demand in the business world today. Creativity can include being incredibly gifted at artistic pursuits all the way through to being able to think outside of the box in business decision-making. You'll certainly want to add this skill to your brand as one of your fundamental identities, should you identify with one or more of the features of creativity. It'll show you're a unique specimen.
In a world that's constantly changing towards a more global, liberally accepting, and inclusive society, someone who is culturally aware is someone who truly is a citizen of the world. By being aware of the vast variety and facets of the many different cultures of the world, you're unlikely to offend anyone on the streets or in a business transaction. What it essentially means, in both personal life and business, is that you're wise, respectful and knowledgeable about other people, and would, therefore, make a great addition to a team or a great partner in a business.
The freelance world is unquantifiable huge and, as the 'gig economy' grows, it's set to get a whole lot bigger. Like the reselling tag, presenting yourself as a freelancer means that you'll be viewed as a self-starter; someone who's able to use their own skills to make it in life independently without the guidance and discipline that is often provided by external means. You don't even have to specify what it is that you freelance with, sometimes people have multiple talents that they sell online, but it's a sign of positivity and confidence to attach the freelancing identity to your brand – certainly advisable!
Above are just four of the ways how an additional identity can help enhance your personal brand, making you a more attractive person to work alongside. What other identities can you recommend?


text:
Web3 might be crypto's key to the mainstream market
2021 has been a significant year for crypto with no fungible token (NFT) being awarded word of the year, decentralized finance (DeFi) trending in the mainstream media and crypto companies making headlines for a variety of announcements. This is, no doubt, in part due to the effects that COVID-19 has had on the economy, with many looking for new ways to diversify their finances and a move to working from home giving people the free time to research new interests. And, many chose to get involved in crypto.
As conversations began to move on from Bitcoin (BTC) to other larger crypto projects like Ethereum network upgrades and central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, news coverage would suggest that the mainstream adoption of crypto is already well underway. However, there is one project which could have the ability to catapult crypto well and truly into everyone's day-to-day lives: Web3.
What is Web3?
With an emphasis on community, Web3 represents the future of the internet where users operate in a decentralized way rather than relying on large private businesses or centralized government bodies.
To many, this seems like the next logical step for the internet, where the concept is partially built on the shortcomings of Web 1.0 and 2.0 such as the concentration of power within centralized entities and issues relating to privacy.
Related: What the hell is Web3 anyway?
We've already seen examples of this within the crypto and DeFi spaces such as the MakerDAO project, which seeks to build an unbiased global financial system run by the community. As DeFi popularity grew in 2021, more projects and protocols made their way onto the market, all vying to bring the benefits of DeFi to as many people as possible. Similarly, protocols such as Nereus have been designed to address issues of fair governance and user experience, both of which mirror the existing issues of Web 2.0.
While it may seem like Web3 and DeFi protocols are separate projects (which they are), these protocols are laying the groundwork for Web3 and its adoption. We're still some way away from seeing Web3 become a reality, but the DeFi protocols coming onto the market not only offer a taste of what the next iteration of the web might be like but also provide opportunities for feedback and tweaking to help make sure Web3 truly serves everyone to the best of its abilities. So, would this mean that crypto would be truly mainstream?
Arguably, yes. As of Jan. 2021, there were around 4.66 billion active internet users around the world, and if Web3 became the default, every one of those users would end up using blockchain and crypto technology on a daily basis, even if they weren't aware of it. However, the main issue lies in what Web3 would even look like. And, as a community project, it means there isn't always one single direction for the next phase of our internet. As such, some have argued that widespread adoption would be difficult due to technical gatekeeping and a lack of clear direction.
Related: Decentralized technology will end the Web3 privacy conundrum
Can mainstream adoption happen without Web3?
While crypto use has been on the rise since the pandemic, the increase in new wallet holders has started to slow down. This would suggest there's something blocking the next step of mainstream adoption. While it's possible that waiting for the implementation of Web3 could be the reason, government regulation could be another factor to help drive crypto into the mainstream.
Previously, crypto hasn't been seen as easily accessible to the mass market due to its complexity and perception of volatility. Opinions have started to change as more accessible crypto products come onto the market such as stablecoins, crypto-enabled debit cards or DeFi products.
Despite the multitude of benefits crypto and DeFi can offer, some people remain skeptical due to lack of government oversight, which is a very understandable stance. Would crypto move into the mainstream then if governments began to set out guidelines?
Based on the evidence we've seen, the answer is surely a resounding yes. Arguably, crypto is already "mainstream" in countries with comprehensive regulation such as Singapore or countries with governments strongly in favor of cryptocurrencies, such as El Salvador and, most recently, Tonga. It only remains on the sidelines in countries still drawing up frameworks and deciding on their stances on crypto.
Related: Why Singapore is one of the most crypto-friendly countries
While it's possible that government regulation and the dawn of Web3 could bring crypto into the mainstream, they both potentially have the power to shape the future of crypto and DeFi and decide where the movement goes next.
With Web3 the emphasis is on decentralization, moving data away from central powers and using AI power to make the internet completely accessible to all without having to rely on big businesses. The current structure of our internet has received criticism due to surveillance and exploitative advertising. For those who extol privacy and anonymity as the main benefits of crypto, the integration of Web3 would make these values more synonymous with day-to-day life. Many have claimed that this was the original goal when Bitcoin was first created — to allow users to operate free from central control.
In contrast, if more governments decide to establish frameworks and regulations for crypto, it is likely there would be more of an emphasis on centralization. Several countries have recently made announcements regarding CBDCs, which would establish a cryptocurrency that would be under the control of a central government.
The United Kingdom, for example, seems to have taken its plans a step further with the creation of the new Crypto and Digital Assets Group to ensure that the U.K. cultivates innovation within the crypto sector while establishing regulation. While this would allow even more people to have easy access to the benefits of crypto such as faster transaction speeds and lower costs (while also mitigating volatility), it would move the emphasis of crypto away from sovereignty and decentralization.
The crypto space is currently at a crossroads and the race between Web3 and central regulation will shape what the future of the industry looks like.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Pavel Matveev is the CEO and co-founder of Wirex, who brings 15 years of experience in software development and IT management from his previous work at Barclays Capital, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse. He's responsible for the high-level functioning and growth of Wirex, focusing on new product development and platform evolution. He's published numerous articles in key international publications and is a sought-after speaker at blockchain and payments conferences.
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Högvaktsterrassen (, "Main Guard Terrace") is a street in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden passing west of Yttre Borgården, the outer court of the Stockholm Palace.

The street stretches north from the Stockholm Cathedral at Storkyrkobrinken and ends in a terrace offering a panoramic view of the Riksdag Building, the square Mynttorget and the northern ramp of the palace, Lejonbacken. It is delimited to the east by the two curved western wings of the Royal Palace, and to the west by a state-owned annex composed by the Oxenstierna Palace and Beijer House and serving as offices and the workrooms of the court.

History
The area north of the cathedral and west of the Medieval palace Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns"), burnt down in 1697, was known as Helvetet ("Hell").  The background of this atrocious name have been subject for some scholarly disputes; some suggesting it reflexes the popular belief the area north of churches were the location of evil (and therefore suitable for suicides and criminals), while other found references in Norse folklore where the "Kingdom of the Dead" was believed to be located to the north, and, 'Hell' still not associated with the pejorative meaning of today, was simply used to indicate northern locations in general.

Historical records from the 15th century describes the area as the location for the city's executioner during the years 1491–1528, and for the city's school building and the royal mint in the 1430s.  Among the numerous alleys once found in the area were many craftsmen's workshops - shoemakers, saddlers, blacksmiths, bakers, etcetera.  On a 16th-century map, the area is taken up by a slope leaning north with a block occupying the location for the present street, a block not present on a map dated 1626, instead suggesting the royal gardens were located here.  In 1653, the Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (1583–1654) started to build his palace still present on the south-western corner of the street, while both his old residence and that of Herman Wrangel (1587–1643) were demolished in the 1740s when the wings of the Main Guard were built.

In 1921, it was suggested the street should be named Kristina Gyllenstiernas skans ("Sconce of. .") after Christina Gyllenstierna (1494–1559), wife of Sten Sture the Younger (1493–1520), whose statue, found nearby at the time, reminded of her bravely defence of the palace against the Danish army in 1520.  However, some discussions concerning the city's right and need to name the location in the first place, eventually resulted in the present name suggested by the linguist Adolf Noreen (1854–1925).

Oxenstierna Palace

Designed by Jean de la Vallée (1620–1696), the palace of the mighty chancellor Axel Oxenstierna was started in 1653 shortly before the death of the proprietor.  The present building, merely a wing of the huge palace originally intended for the site, introduced the Roman palace architecture acting by means of elaborately decorated windows on a plain plastered wall.  The interplay with the urban setting is underlined by the projecting parts of the southern façade being aligned to the street and thus not perpendicular to the façade.  The building is unique for the well preserved exterior, including the various sandstone decorations, and the alternating mezzanines of the five storeys, and the interior, including decorative 17th century hinges.  Notwithstanding the name, the Oxenstierna dynasty never actually lived in the building, instead serving as offices since its completion.  The equivalent of the Bank of Sweden occupied the building in the end of the 17th century, and it has been the property of the Swedish State since.

Beijer House

Named after Johan von Beijer (-1669), a man of German origin appointed postmaster in 1642, who bought two buildings on the site that same year to replace them with his own residence, accordingly the only post office in the capital until his death.  The brick cellar vaults of the two Medieval buildings are still preserved, and the building is the only burgher residence with a preserved 17th century courtyard.  Two storeys were added during the 18th and 19th centuries, and in 1918 it became the property of the state and was subsequently merged with the Oxenstierna Palace.  The building was declared a historical monument in 1949 and is today occupied by the accountants of the Parliament, the unique interiors and courtyard thus not accessible to the public.

See also
List of streets and squares in Gamla stan
The Stockholm Palace article contains a panorama from Högvaktsterrassen

References

External links
Stockholm City Museum - Högvaktsterrassen, main source for this article containing several maps over the area showing archaeological traces of older structures.
4πSr - Panorama of Högvaktsterrassen (fifth from bottom, 2.7 MB QTVR)
hitta.se - location map

Streets in Stockholm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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RealTraps' new line of high-performance acoustic treatment products are modular and require no permanent mounting. All of the modules are six inches thick and can be stacked free-standing up to a height of eight feet. A special soft non-slip material is provided to hold the traps securely and protect them from scratching.
RealTraps' new line of high-performance acoustic treatment products are modular and require no permanent mounting. All of the modules are six inches thick and can be stacked free-standing up to a height of eight feet. A special soft non-slip material is provided to hold the traps securely and protect them from scratching.
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Find out more information about the MondoTraps line.


text:
Morningside Quaker Meeting
A Brief History of the Quakers
The term "quakerism" is believed to be a term of derision given to 17th-century Friends because they "quaked" before the Spirit. Like many religious groups, they were persecuted because they rejected the standard structures of the established church and forms of worship.
George Fox and other important early Friends, including Margaret Fell (who would marry Fox) and James Nayler, believed that a priestly class, vestments and religious symbols stood in the way of true worship. Referring to John 15:15, early Quakers saw themselves as "friends" to that of God in all.
The seminal Quaker writing from this period is the Journal orAutobiography of George Fox, which describes the spiritual journey of a young man who, failing to discover answers in the existing (state) religion, found solace in silent worship, replacing theological questions with personal experience and continuing revelation.
18th century Friends were led to see the inherent contradiction between the freedom of the Spirit and the ownership of human beings, and to begin questioning all moral argumens for slavery. Leaders like John Woolman, who, in The Journal of John Woolman (1774), recounted his 40-year campaign to persuade slave-owning Friends to free their slaves, emphasized that the fact that God was within us all was inconsistent with the ownership of slaves. Woolman also saw dress as a socioeconomic statement. He refused to wear cotton and eliminated collars and dyed fabric from his wardrobe, not in order to create a Quaker aesthetic, but because cotton and buttons and dyes were produced with slave labor and wearing those products validated the system of slavery.
In the 19th century Friends experienced a period of Quietism in which they ceased any activity in the political arena and struggled to establish a shared identity. In the end Friends split into two sects largely along economic and social lines. That schism between evangelical and non-evangelical Friends continues to this day.
In the 20th Century writers such as Rufus Jones reinvigorated Quakerism by framing it as simultaneously mystical and practical. Jones was one of the founders, in 1917 of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), to provide alternative service programs for conscientious objectors in World War I. His combination of mysticism and service has come to define Quakerism today. An excellent collection of digitized works of Jones and other Quakers is available at from the Hathi Trust Digital Library. In 1943, a group of Friends founded the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in order to lobby for changes in national legislation to make the nation's laws more consistent with Quaker testimonies and values, especially the peace testimony. FCNL is a "nonpartisan, multi-issue advocacy that connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues."
Further Information on Quaker History and Practice
New York Yearly meeting publishes a manual of faith and practice that provides Monthly meetings with guidance when making decisions of process. Faith and Practice is not a rulebook; it does not prescribe rules of governance. Instead it provides prayerful reflections about the most basic questions of conducting Worship and Business.
Quaker Infomation Service of Earlham College provides an excellent list of books about the history of Friends.
Quaker.org is an excellent site for all things Quaker. Maintained by Russell Nelson.
Quakerbooks.org is a source of works by and about Quakers, including the Pendle Hill Pamphlets.
The Morningside Library maintains a small lending library on the premises of Morningside Meeting's meeting room. The librarian would be happy to introduce you to the collection.
It may fairly be said that the whole neighbourhood was slowly uplifted by the coming of one quiet life into its midst.
A memoir of William Dent (1778–1861)
© 2021 Morningside Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends.


text:
Tea is the second most popular beverage in the world (the most popular is water). It is made by steeping processed leaves, buds or twigs of the tea bush Camellia sinensis in hot water for a few minutes. The processing can include oxidation (fermentation), heating, drying and the addition of other herbs, flowers, spices and fruits.
Tea is traditionally classified based on the degree or period of fermentation (oxidation) the leaves have undergone.
There are four types of true tea:
The term Herbal Tea or Herbal Tisane usually refers to infusions of fruit or herbs such as rosehip tea, chamomile tea and Jiaogulan that contain no tea leaves. (Alternative terms for herbal tea that avoid the word ""tea"" are tisane and herbal infusion.)
Tea is a natural source of caffeine, theophylline, and antioxidants, but it has almost no fat, carbohydrates, or protein. It has a cooling, slightly bitter and astringent taste.
More About Tea
The plant:
The tea plant is a species of tree related to the camelia. Its flowers are yellowy-white and its fruits small and hard-shelled, similar to a hazelnut. The evergreen leaves are leathery, dark and slightly serrated. Given minimum annual temperatures of 18° C, moderate and infrequent frosts, a uniform annual precipitation of 1600 l and a good balance of sunshine, a tea plant can easily grow to become 100 years old. Wild tea plants are indeed reputed to reach an age of up to 1,700 years.
Two original tea plants are known today:
Thea sinensis (or Chinese tea) is a shrub-like plant which reaches a maximum height of 3-4 m and can even survive frosts.
The assamica (or Assam tea) is a substantial tree reaching a height of 15-20 m which grows exclusively in the tropics.
The constant crossing of these two original plants forms the basis of all the tea cultures in the world today.
Cultivation:
Tea is propagated vegetatively, i.e. by taking cuttings from parent plants. The tea plant is kept in the vegetative phase by regular pruning to prevent flowering and fruit formation. This also makes it easier for the tea pickers to gather the 2 uppermost leaves and the newest bud (only these are relevant for the tea harvest). Most picking is still done by hand in order to preserve the quality of the harvest. Some countries have developed mechanical picking methods, however, which greatly simplify production processes.
Tea is cultivated in large plantations such as those of the Indian district of Darjeeling, e.g. on the 2,000m high slopes of the Himalayas . Much lower lying is the Assam region of Northern India, the biggest continuous tea cultivation area of the world, siutated on either side of the Brahmaputra.
On the island of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), a bitter, aromatic tea is produced in the three cultivation areas of Dimbula, Nuwara Eliya and Uva which has become famous throughout the world. The Chinese produce a distinctly smoky, mild tea in various provinces such as Yunnan and Zhejiang. The Chinese are known for their tea specialities, such as tea bricks or tea roses.
Japan produces exclusively green tea, most of which is consumed by the Japanese themselves. Other tea-producing countries are Africa, Indonesia, Taiwan and Argentina as well as Thailand, Russia and Turkey, though these are relatively insignificant in terms of production volume. See also statistics.
Pu-erh: (also known as Póu léi (Polee) in Cantonese), Two forms of pu-erh teas are available, ""raw"" and ""cooked"". ""Raw"" or ""green"" pu-erh may be consumed young or aged to further mature. During the aging process, the tea undergoes a second, microbial fermentation. ""Cooked"" pu-erh is made from green pu-erh leaf that has been artificially oxidized to approximate the flavour of the natural aging process. This is done through a controlled process similar to composting, where both the moisture and temperature of the tea are carefully monitored. Both types of pu-erh tea are usually compressed into various shapes including bricks, discs, bowls, or mushrooms. Compression occurs to start the second oxidation/fermentation process, as only compressed forms of pu-erh will age. While most teas are consumed within a year of production, pu-erh can be aged for many years to improve its flavour, up to 30 to 50 years for raw pu-erh and 10 to 15 years for cooked pu-erh, although experts and afficionados disagree about what the optimal age is to stop the aging process. Most often, pu-erh is steeped for up to five minutes in boiling water. Additionally, Some Tibetans use pu-erh as a caloric food, boiled with yak butter, sugar and salt to make yak butter tea. Teas that undergo a second oxidation, such as pu-erh and liu bao, are collectively referred to as black tea in Chinese. This is not to be confused with the English term Black tea, which is known in Chinese as ""red Tea"".
Yellow tea: Either used as a name of high-quality tea served at the Imperial court, or of special tea processed similarly to green tea, but with a slower drying phase.
Kukicha: Also called winter tea, kukicha is made from twigs and old leaves pruned from the tea plant during its dormant season and dry-roasted over a fire. It is popular as a health food in Japan and in macrobiotic diets.
Genmaicha: literally ""brown rice tea"" in Japanese, a green tea blended with dry-roasted brown rice (sometimes including popped rice), very popular in Japan but also drunk in China.
Flower Tea: Teas processed or brewed with flowers; typically, each flower goes with a specific category of tea, such as green or red tea. The most famous flower tea is jasmine tea ( H¬eung Pín in Cantonese, Hua Chá, simply flower tea, in Mandarin), a green or oolong tea scented (or brewed) with jasmine flowers. Rose, lotus, luchee, and chrysanthemum are also popular flowers.
Tea is sometimes classified by its health-related properties. For instance, teas good for weight loss include all green teas in the broadest sense, including white and yellow teas, and even pu-erh teas (which can look brown). Different types of teas in China are associated with different balances of yin and yang. Green teas tend to be yin, black and red teas tend to be yang, and Oolong teas tends to be balanced. Brown Pu-erh tea is usually yang, and is sometimes mixed with yin-energy chrysanthemum flowers to balance it. Chinese people will often choose which tea to drink based on the yin-yang nature of a season, or based on a recommendation from a Chinese doctor.
Blending and additives
Almost all teas in tea-bags and most other teas sold are blends. Blending may occur at the level of tea-planting area (e.g., Assam), or teas from many areas may be blended. The aim of blending is a stable taste over different years, and a better price. More expensive, better tasting tea may cover the inferior taste of cheaper tea.
There are various teas which have additives and/or different processing than ""pure"" varieties. Tea is able to easily receive any aroma, which may cause problems in processing, transportation or storage of tea, but can be also advantageously used to prepare scented teas. Pure tea is known to have cool effects in summer whereas has soothing and hot effects in winters.
Tea contains catechins, a type of antioxidant. In fresh tea leaf, catechins can be up to 30% of the dry weight. Catechins are highest in concentration in white and green teas while black tea has substantially less due to its oxidative preparation. Tea also contains the stimulants caffeine (about 3% of the dry weight and typically 40 mg per cup of prepared tea), theophylline and theobromine, the latter two being present in very small amounts.
Tea bags: Tea leaves are packed into a small (usually paper) tea bag. It is easy and convenient, making tea bags popular for many people nowadays. However, because fannings and dust from modern tea processing are also included in most tea bags, it is commonly held among tea aficionados that this method provides an inferior taste and experience. The paper used for the bag can also be tasted by many which can detract from the tea's flavor.
Additional reasons why bag tea is considered less well-flavored include:
Dried tea loses its flavor quickly on exposure to air. Most bag teas (although not all) contain leaves broken into small pieces; the great surface-area-to-volume ratio of the leaves in tea bags exposes them to more air, and therefore causes them to go stale faster. Loose tea leaves are likely to be in larger pieces, or to be entirely intact.
Breaking up the leaves for bags extracts flavored oils.
Good loose-leaf teas tend to be vacuum-packed.
Loose tea : The tea leaves are packaged loosely in a canister or other container. The portions must be individually measured by the consumer for use in a cup, mug or teapot. This allows greater flexibility, letting the consumer brew weaker or stronger tea as desired, but convenience is sacrificed. Strainers, ""tea presses"", filtered teapots and infusion bags are available commercially to avoid having to drink the floating loose leaves. A more traditional, yet perhaps more effective way around this problem is to use a three-piece lidded teacup, called a gaiwan. The lid of the gaiwan can be tilted to decant the leaves while pouring the tea into a different cup for consumption.
Compressed tea : A lot of tea is still compressed for storage and aging convenience. Commonly Pu-er tea is compressed and then drunk by loosening leaves off using a small knife. Most of the time compressed tea can be stored longer than loose leaf tea.
Tea Infusers : One of the more modern forms of tea consumption, an alternative to the tea bag, is tea infusers. Tea Infusers are perforated metal or extruded film tubes that contain tea leaves (often of a superior quality). Unlike a tea bag that compresses under its own weight when steeped in water, a tea infuser allows the tea leaves enough space to uncurl and impart its full flavor to the water they steep in. Placed in a cup, hot water is directly poured over the tea infuser and allowed to steep for a few minutes. The stick also acts as a strainer and a stirrer.
There are two kinds of tea infusers: Disposable and Reusable.
Disposable lifestyle Tea Infusers from Petit Tea combine the pleasure of world class loose leaf teas with convenience of tea bags. Yet unlike teabags our elegantly crafted square Tea Infusers provide space that all fine loose leaf teas need to uncurl to impart their delicate flavor and aroma to the water they steep in. These tea infusers are exclusively available from Petit Tea.
Check out our Tea Infusers here