Indian introduces paan-flavoured condoms

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2007

NEW DELHI (AFP) — A condom flavoured with the popular mixture of betel nut and tobacco known as paan is to go on sale in India, newspapers said Tuesday.

State-owned company Hindustan Latex has already tested the pungent and bitter mixture on their main market, sex workers, who preferred it to other flavours such as banana and chocolate, the Hindustan Times reported

"The community loved it as most of the sex workers chew paan," Sanjeev Gaikwad, a director at advocacy group Family Health International who helped launch the new condom.

Varieties of betel nut, tobacco and often sweet and bitter pastes are mixed in a concotion called paan sold at street-side stalls across South Asia.

Aficionados chew the mixture wrapped in a leaf and then spit the red...