Process for manufacturing tea products

a technology for tea products and processing methods, applied in tea extraction, drug compositions, metabolic disorders, etc., can solve the problems of bringing unwanted bitterness or astringency to tea beverages, unstable tea beverages, and haze to tea beverages, so as to reduce the amount of caffeine in tea juice expressed from dhool, the effect of reducing the proportion of gallated theaflavins and reducing the proportion of caffein

Inactive Publication Date: 2009-05-07
CONOPCO INC D B A UNILEVER
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0082]In a second aspect, the present invention provides tea juice obtained and / or obtainable by the process and in a third aspect a beverage obtained and / or obtainable by diluting the tea juice. Such juice and beverages will have a low level of gallated theaflavins and / or a low level of caffeine and thus may be more stable and / or less bitter than tea juices produced by alternative processes.

Problems solved by technology

Packaged ready-to-drink tea beverages can sometimes be unstable.
In particular, such beverages can often develop haze on storage.
Such gallated polyphenols can also bring unwanted bitterness or astringency to tea beverages.
A drawback with using tannase treatment to decrease the amount of gallated polyphenols is that the gallic acid released during desterification can negatively impact on the flavour of beverages made from the treated tea solids.
Consumers are also increasingly interested in foods and beverages which have a low caffeine content, owing to the perceived health risks of a high caffeine diet.
Furthermore, caffeine is known to add to the bitterness of tea beverages.
A drawback of such decaffeination processes is that the use of non-aqueous solvents is not only unfriendly to the environment, but can also result in removal of valuable compounds from tea other than caffeine.
Furthermore, the tea products prepared by this process are likely to contain substantial levels of gallated polyphenols and / or caffeine as these compounds would be extracted by the hot water extraction.

Method used

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Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

example 1

[0144]This Example demonstrates the effect of the degree of fermentation of dhool on the composition of juice expressed from the dhool.

Fresh Leaves

[0145]Fresh Kenyan tea leaves (two leaves and a bud) of Camellia sinensis var. assamica which had not been withered were used. The catechin content of the unmacerated leaves was about 15% by weight.

Preparation and Fermentation of Dhool

[0146]The fresh tea leaves were chopped using a vegetable cutter before being fed twice through a CTC (cut, tear, curl) machine (Rollers set at six teeth per inch with speeds of 1000 and 100 rpm respectively). The fresh dhool was then fermented for 2 hours at a temperature of 25° C. using a Teacraft™ fermentation unit (0.5° C. wet bulb depression, 90% R.H.). Samples of dhool were taken directly after maceration, after 1 hour of fermentation and at the end of fermentation in order to determine the amount of catechins in the dhool at these times. Each sample was dried in a fluid bed drier immediately after col...

example 2

[0153]This Example demonstrates the processing of fresh leaf to produce black leaf tea and black tea juice.

Production of Juice

[0154]Fresh tea leaves (which had not been withered) were chopped using a vegetable cutter before being fed through a CTC (cut, tear, curl) machine (Rollers set at six teeth per inch with speeds of 1000 and 100 rpm respectively). The fresh dhool was then fermented for 2 hours at 25° C. using a Teacraf™ fermentation unit (0.5° C. wet bulb depression, 90% R.H.).

[0155]Fermented dhool was then pressed using a hydraulic press (5 Tonnes applied to a 500 g mass of fermented leaf inside a cylinder of diameter 160 mm, resulting in a downward pressure of 354 psi (2.44 MPa)) to express black tea juice. The yield of black tea juice was 25 ml / 100 g fermented dhool, and had a total solids content of 8% by weight. The tea juice was immediately centrifuged for 20 minutes (10000 g at 3° C.) and the supernatant was then filter sterilised using a Nalgene™ filtration unit fitted...

example 3

[0159]This Example demonstrates the production of a ready-to-drink tea-based beverage from black tea juice.

[0160]Fresh tea leaves were chopped using a vegetable cutter, passed twice through a CTC machine and then fermented for 2 hours. The fermented dhool was pressed at 5 tonne pressure using a static press to yield the black juice.

[0161]The juice was clarified using a Beckman Avanti J-25 centrifuge (JLA-9.1000 rotor, 10 minutes at 12500 rcf, 20° C.). The clarified juice contained 6.5 wt % tea solids. The juice was formulated into a beverage by combining the ingredients shown in table 6.

TABLE 6IngredientAmount (g / l)Tea Juice30.8Sodium Bicarbonate0.1Ascorbic Acid0.2Deionised Water968.9

[0162]The product was UHT-treated (30 seconds at 136° C.) cooled to 80° C. and then filled and sealed into 150 ml cans. The cans were inverted for 1 minute to pasteurise the lids and then quickly cooled to 20° C. in a water bath.

[0163]The resulting RTD beverage was found to have a caffeine content of 5....

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PUM

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Abstract

Disclosed is a process comprising the steps of: providing fresh tea leaves comprising catechins; macerating the fresh tea leaves thereby to produce dhool; fermenting the dhool for a fermentation time (tF) sufficient to reduce the content of catechins in the dhool to less than 50% of the content of catechins in the fresh tea leaves prior to maceration on a dry weight basis; and then expressing juice from the fermented dhool thereby to produce leaf residue and tea juice, wherein the amount of expressed juice is at least 50 ml per kg of the fresh tea leaves.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to a process for manufacturing tea products. In particular, the present invention relates to a process for manufacturing tea products from juice expressed from fermented tea leaves.BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION[0002]Beverages based on the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) have been popular throughout the world for many hundreds of years. Traditionally such beverages are produced by infusing leaf tea in hot water.[0003]Although many consumers still enjoy beverages made from leaf tea, it is becoming increasingly popular to enjoy tea beverages prepared in more convenient ways. For example, tea beverages can be prepared from instant powders which are free from insoluble leaf tea and so dissolve rapidly and completely on contact with hot water. These powder products are usually manufactured by a process comprising extracting leaf tea with water and drying the resulting extract. Also popular are packaged ready-to-drink beverage...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): A23F3/40A23F3/08
CPCA23F3/08A23F3/30A23F3/163A23F3/14A61P3/04
Inventor COLLIVER, STEVEN PETERDOWNIE, ANDREW LEESHARP, DAVID GEORGEYOU, XIAOQING
Owner CONOPCO INC D B A UNILEVER
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