One analyst says foreign suitors might also be watching Tingyi and Uni-President, which are strong in bottled water, iced tea and juice.

Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in bottled water, the Daily Mail reported recently.

However, there is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients - polyphenols - found in bottled tea beverages.