Find/Replace using Regexes in Java

I needed to strip markup from a string. For example, I needed to replace <i>this</i> with this.

This is a paraphrased method that I wrote (along with help from colleagues) to complete the task.

public static final String stripMarkup(String content) {
    final Pattern tagPattern = Pattern.compile("</?\\w+>");
    final StringBuffer replacement = new StringBuffer();
    final Matcher matcher = tagPattern.matcher(content);
    while (matcher.find()) {
        matcher.appendReplacement(replacement, "");
    }
    matcher.appendTail(replacement);

    tag.removeChildren();
    return replacement.toString();
}